Nadal has had a far better 2017 than he might have hoped when he had to take a lengthy chunk of time off tennis last year to recover from a wrist injury.
He reached the final of the Australian Open, where he lost to Federer, but then won his 10th French Open title – La Decima, as it became known – to take his Grand Slam tally to 15.
Rublev could hardly be at a more opposite end of the spectrum. The 19-year-old Russian has never won more than one match at the same major before knocking Grigor Dimitrov and David Goffin out on his way to the last eight.
Can he spring one more surprise and knock out Nadal? Express Sport will guide you all the way through the clash on Arthur Ashe.
Rafael Nadal v Andrey Rublev LIVE – Latest US Open 2017 updates
6.50pm: Going CoCo!! Vandeweghe has beaten Pliskova in straight sets in some emotional scenes on Arthur Ashe.
What it also means is that Rafa and Andrey will be out on court pretty soon. Excellent news all round.
6.25pm: Looks like we might be getting a little closer to Nadal O’Clock. Vandeweghe has taken the first set in a tie-break and No 1 seed Pliskova is in a bit of a strop, to the delight of the American fans.
Rafa is probably pacing a little more urgently in the locker rooms.
6pm: Surely, surely Rublev can’t ruin the party, can he? If he does, there will be one fan who paid more than £17,000 for a pair of courtside tickets to the Nadal-Federer semi-final who will want his guts for garters.
Before any of that though, we need to wait for Karolina Pliskova and CoCo Vandeweghe to sort out which one of them will be in the semi-finals. That might be a while at this rate because we are probably going to a tie-break in tight first set.
The roof incidentally, for those who are interested, is closed. That probably favours Rublev slightly – but it’s a marginal gain.
