Madrid Crisis Center, Day 8

'Morning, everyone. Here's your regular post for discussing today's matches in Madrid. The Order of Play can be found here, beginning at 11.00 a.m. local time (5.00 a.m. TW time, or US Eastern Standard time). Please keep your conversations focused on tennis until after the day's matches are over.

We'll be providing you with Overflow posts as and when needed, to try to avoid the worst problems with TypePad. The first Overflow will be linked at the bottom of this headline post when the time comes; subsequent Overflows will be found in the usual way on the Overflow blog - by following automatically generated links at the top and bottom of the previous post. If you find that any of these posts is suddenly closed to comments during live play, it means that a new post is already open for you to use.

Matches begin with the women's two semifinals - Amelie Mauresmo against Caroline Wozniacki, and Dinara Safina versus Patty Schnyder. Wozniacki and Mauresmo have never played each other on tour; Safina is 3-0 against Schnyder in their head-to-head.

At 4 p.m. local time (that's 10 a.m. TW time) the first men's semifinal takes place: Rafael Nadal versus Novak Djokovic. Nadal was the victor in three clay encounters this year to date; Djokovic remains the only player to take a set from Nadal on the surface in 2009. Juan Martin Del Potro scored his second win over one of the top four last night in defeating Andy Murray in straight sets - his reward tonight is to play Roger Federer (8 p.m. local time; 2 p.m. TW time), who he's never yet beaten. The two haven't met on clay before.

As always, enjoy today's tennis.

-- Rosangel Valenti

[An Overflow post has now been opened - please follow the link below - RV].

***Overflow

---