Phew! Three hours and 55 minutes of unbelievable tennis. Chennai has never seen anything like it in its 11 editions before. There were two favourites -- both Spaniards -- slugging it out on centre court, Chennai's adopted son Carlos Moya and world No 2 Rafael Nadal.
Sadly, there can be only one winner in any contest. On the day, it happened to be the top-seeded Nadal. When Moya's forehand sailed long on match point, Nadal sank to his knees in celebration.
Nadal came through three epic tie-breaks sets in the semifinals of the Chennai Open in front of around 5000 wildly cheering, screaming, fans at the Nungambakkam Tennis stadium on Saturday night.
The 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (7-1) victory powered Nadal into the final of the $436,000 ATP Tour event. In the title clash on Sunday, Nadal takes on Russia's Mikhail Youzhny. The Russian fourth seed had earlier breezed past unseeded Marin Cilic 6-2, 6-3 in the other semifinals.
At one stage in the evening, it looked like a Moya vs Youzhny final. But with Nadal, you can never take anything for granted. The three-time French Open champion, facing four match points and staring at a certain defeat, staged one of the brilliant comebacks in Chennai Open history.
Down 3-6 in the second set tie-break after losing the first, Nadal, besides a brilliant forehand crosscourt winner, rode on Moya's largesse to level at 6-6. But a brilliant forehand down-the-line winner gave Moya another match point. But Moya, spot on with his volleys earlier in the match, put one into the net.  Given a lifeline, Nadal never looked back thereafter. His brilliant returns forced the edgy Moya into errors. One such gave Nadal the second set. 
Moya put an end to that when an inside-out forehand winner gave him the break in the fifth game of the decider. But the ageing star, running on reserve now, came up with a poor service game when serving for the match. The energy-sapping tie seemed to have taken a toll on the two-time Chennai Open champion.
The never-say-die Nadal broke back in the 10th game and motored along in the tie-break (7-1) to take the set and with it the match. "It was an unbelievable match," Nadal said afterwards. But for the better part of the match, it was Nadal who was playing catch-up. Moya came up with string of winners to push Nadal onto the back foot straightaway. The difference between the two was the forehand. Moya's huge ones brooked no answers. He even converted most of the backhands into forehands!
Matching his younger opponent for speed and court coverage too, Moya clearly looked streets ahead of Nadal. Though Nadal had a break opportunity in the 10th game, Moya saved it with ease and took the tie-break 7-3.
Nadal did come back strongly, breaking Moya in the fifth game. But the world No 17 broke back in the 10th game, only to fritter away four match points in the tie-break to let Nadal off the hook.
Results: Singles (Semifinals): Mikhail Youzhny (Rus) bt Marin Cilic (Cro) 6-2, 6-3; ; Rafael Nadal (Esp) bt Carlos Moya (Esp) 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (7-1).
Quarterfinals: M Youzhny bt Xavier Malisse (Bel) 6-4, 6-4; M Cilic bt Robin Haase (Ned) 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Doubles (Semifinal): Sanchai Ratiwatana/ Sonchat Ratiwatana (Thai) bt Marin Cilic (Cro)/ Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak) 2-6, 6-2, 10-4; Marcos Baghdatis (Cyp)/ Marc Gicquel (Fra) vs  Harel Levy (Isr)/ Rajeev Ram (USA) 6-7, 7-6, 10-8.