Rafael Nadal: If I'm not aggressive against Milos Raonic, 'I am dead'

MELBOURNE, Australia—Rafael Nadal and Milos Raonic know their game plans before they face off in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. The two clashed just over two weeks ago, when the Canadian took down the Spaniard in the Brisbane quarterfinals. They also met in the Abu Dhabi exhibition a week before that. Nadal won that encounter.

The 14-time Grand Slam champion won the Australian Open in 2009, but he hasn’t won a major since 2014. Nadal says that he has been happy with his play during the Australian Open, beating No. 24 Alexander Zverev and No. 6 Gael Monfils to get to the quarters.

“I think [it’s] going to be a tough match for me,” Nadal said of playing Raonic. “In Brisbane, he beat me. But at the same time, [it] is true that I have been close.

"…He's an opponent that [makes] you feel that you're playing with a lot of pressure all the time, because his serve is huge and he's playing very aggressive from the baseline. I need to be very focused with my serve and play aggressive. If I am not playing aggressive, then I am dead.”

The No. 3-ranked Raonic has yet to win a major, but he’s gotten close, reaching the Wimbledon final last year. Raonic, who gets injured frequently, says that he is playing “my best tennis right now.”

His former coach, Carlos Moya, is now working with Nadal. The Canadian acknowledged that him and Nadal know each other well, and are both on a roll.

“I think it's going to be a fight between me and him, if that's the case,” Raonic said, looking back to their three-setter in Brisbane. "We both tried to be the aggressors early on. I fought through a difficult moment midway through that second set. Then I thought I had it pretty handily after that point. I broke towards the end of that second set, broke right away in the third. [I] had a lot of love-30 games, had a lot of break chances following after that, [and was] holding quite easy.

"I found that tipping, sort of turning point that I was looking for in that match. Obviously it's very within me to find those solutions again.”