Federer turns up the heat on fierce rival Nadal

WIMBLEDON champion Roger Federer has stoked up his rivalry with Rafael Nadal by claiming he would be surprised if the Spaniard reaches Sunday’s final.

Nadal has emerged as the only serious threat to Federer’s position as world number one, beating the all-conquering Swiss star an astonishing six times in seven meetings.

Four of those victories came in the finals of clay or hard court events — his preferred surfaces — including at last month’s French Open. But Nadal has traditionally struggled on grass.

“The men’s game isn’t all about me and Rafael Nadal,” said the number one seed, who is on course to win his fourth consecutive Wimbledon title.

“The attention on us was very big throughout the clay court season because we played in three finals, and before that we played in the Dubai final.

“Obviously it would be interesting to see what happens on grass. We still don’t know how good he is because he’s had a pretty good draw so far.

“If Rafael made the final that would be quite a surprise to many, even though he’s such a good player you might expect him to get there.

“To a certain degree it would be a surprise for me if he got to the final.”

Federer faces an intriguing quarter-final against Croatian seventh seed Mario Antic, who was the last player to beat him on grass in the first round at Wimbledon in 2002.

“I feel okay about playing Mario. We’ve had some tough matches in the past, we just played each other at the French Open,” said Federer, who won is straight sets.

“Obviously, that’s very different to what we’ll see here. The biggest memory probably is he’s the last guy I lost to on grass.”

Ancic insists his 2002 defeat of Federer has little relevance to today’s showdown, instead looking to their French Open clash for inspiration.

“When I beat him on grass it was four years ago, we’ve both changed a lot since then. This is just a new match,” he said.

“I was happy that I played in Paris against him, so what happened in that match — some of which was positive — is more important than what happened four year ago.”

Nadal meets Jarkko Nieminen having played the Finnish 22nd seed once already this year, beating him 4-6 6-4 6-3 in the quarter-finals in Barcelona.

“That was a tough match but it should be different here because Wimbledon is grass not clay. I was losing 4-1 in that match,” he said.

“But here it should be different so we’ll see what happens. I’m playing well on this surface.”

Lleyton Hewitt clashes with Andrew Murray’s fourth-round conqueror Marcos Baghdatis expecting the 18th seed from Cyprus to play a similar game to the British number one.

Hewitt, a winner at the All England Club in 2002, said: “Marcos mixes his game up extremely well. He’s similar to Andy Murray in many ways.

“He’ll play the percentages for a bit and then just pull the trigger on a big one. He’s capable of producing those big shots when he wants to.”

Czech 14th seed Radek Stepanek completes the men’s quarter-final line-up with his match against Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden.