2015 ROME: Men's Semifinals Set Federer-Wawrinka, Djokovic-Ferrer

The semifinals of the 2015 ATP Madrid Masters are set, and surprisingly, they do not include 7-time champion Rafael Nadal. Due to today's surprising 7-6(7) 6-2 loss to Stan Wawrinka in the quarterfinals Nadal is now in uncharted territory during a clay court season. For the first time in his illustrious career, Nadal will be defending his Roland Garros title without having won a single European clay court warm-up tournament, and in fact he has lost on clay 5 times in 2015 (to Fabio Fognini in Brazil and Barcelona, to Novak Djokovic in Monte Carlo, to Andy Murray in Madrid and now to Wawrinka in Rome). And most of these losses were in straight sets. Hi

However, the tour goes on. The semifinals are set and instead of the expected Federer-Nadal XXXIV match-up there will be an all-Swiss match between Roger Federer and Wawrinka where Federer leads their head-to-head 15-2. Then again, Wawrinka had a 1-12 record against Nadal (with the one win coming in the finals of the Australian Open last year). That being said, I expect Federer to come through that match to reach his 4th Italian Open final--a tournament he has never won.

He will almost certainly face World #1 Novak Djokovic, who will play a semifinal against David Ferrer (whom he has a 14-5 advantage against).

MadProfessah's pick: Federer-Djokovic final.