The Wide, Wide Wake of Rafael Nadal But Robin Soderling's photograph is still present and accounted for at Roland Garros: on display behind a bathroom door in a hallway in the press center that leads to the Philippe Chatrier Court. In the image, Soderling's left fist and bicep are clenched triumphantly and his face is twisted into a Viking scowl, a reminder of just how much muscle and inner fire are required to knock Nadal off the throne of his clay-court empire. At least for all the other men who keep returning each year with diminishing hope, Soderling is proof that it can be done. But nobody has come close to giving Soderling company in five matches this year. Nadal has yet to lose a set, not even to his fellow Spaniard Nicolás Almagro in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Almagro, seeded 12th, appears to be close to the form of his life. A coaching change and address change has reinvigorated him. He has won more matches than any man on clay this season, including Nadal. He just won the tournament in Nice without dropping a set and had not dropped one here until Nadal beat him in a first-set tiebreaker on his way to a 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, 6-3 victory. There was a sunny side to defeat: This was, by far, Nadal's toughest match in Paris this year, and there were phases when Almagro, much closer to the baseline than Nadal, was hitting with awesome power and forcing Nadal into full stretch in the corners. Almagro even had four break points on the Mallorcan's serve, though he could not manage to convert one. But no matter the particulars, defeat surely came as no surprise to Almagro, who is the same age as the 26-year-old Nadal and has been living in his wide wake since they were juniors. Almagro lost in the semifinals of the boy's tournament at Roland Garros in 2003, a year when Nadal was already winning main-draw matches in Grand Slam tournaments and soaring into the top 50 of the A.T.P. rankings. It is too much to ask for a Spaniard, particularly one whose best surface is clay, to steal much thunder from Nadal in his era. And Nadal is now 8-0 against Almagro in their professional careers, the one who gets to give the magnanimous interviews once the grunting and sliding are done. "I was lucky in my opinion the last set," Nadal said. He had a few opportunities with my serve to have the break, but I was a little bit lucky and able to save it and after, with my second or third chance, I did and closed the match. I'm sorry for Nicolás. He's a great player. He's doing a fantastic season, and I wish him all the best for the rest. The rest still remains for Nadal at Roland Garros, who is back in the semifinals for the seventh time here and will face David Ferrer, the No.6 seed who is another talented Spaniard living in the Nadal wake. Ferrer advanced with a 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-2 victory late on Wednesday over Andy Murray, the No.4 seed from Britain. Can Ferrer or anybody stop Nadal this time? "Nahhhh," said Jim Courier, a former French Open champion, shaking his head. Injury? So how did Soderling, missing this year because of mononucleosis, manage do it in the fourth round in 2009? He did it by following the template that Almagro tried to follow on Thursday: forcing the issue consistently by taking big risks off both wings. He did it with huge serving. He did it with caveats: Nadal's knees were hurting and so was his spirit in a year when his parents were having marital difficulties. Why I lost? The first thing is because you cannot win always," Nadal said in an interview. Second thing, the normal thing is to lose, the normal thing is not to win because only one player wins. Third thing, the opponent played much better than me, and if we have to find the reasons, we have the excuses. I had a tough year that year. I started with some problems at home and, most important thing, a lot of problems in my knees. And in my opinion, that year I played very bad all the clay-court season. Nonetheless, he had played well enough to crush Soderling on red clay in Rome, 6-1, 6-0, shortly before the French Open. It was completely different in Roland Garros. He started to play very aggressive," Nadal said. His shots were flat, long. He had not many mistakes. Nadal also had the French crowd against him, in part because of the natural inclination to support the underdog when an athlete dominates any event the way that Nadal has dominated the French Open. "I love a lot this place; I love a lot this tournament, and for me it's difficult to say something negative," Nadal said. The situation of 2009, when I lost, was it disappointing for me about the crowd? I don't want to lie, but, yes, because I was having tough moments even winning tournaments. "But that feeling I only had that year," Nadal added. The rest of the years, seriously, I don't feel the crowd against me, never. That's my feeling, and I'm talking with my heart. Last year, I played the final against Roger, I don't feel the crowd against me. I feel the crowd 50-50 supporting a great tennis match, and that's it. Nadal has played many a great match in Paris, and he is now an astonishing 50-1 in this tournament, which he was won six times and is now within two victories of winning for a record seventh time. But the brilliance is, of course, not just in the numbers. It is in the day-to-day, round-to-round details, like the break point Almagro faced on his serve at 3-4 in the final set on Thursday. He took command of the point early, taking huge cuts at the ball and converting. But Nadal, 10 feet or more behind the baseline, kept scrambling, lunging, believing, and the point and the game ultimately ended with a forehand in the net from Almagro that will go down officially as an unforced error but, in truth, was forced by a man at the summit of his clay-court art.