Experience proved no match for youthful vitality as Rafael Nadal trampled over his boyhood mentor at the French Open on Wednesday.

Nadal did not let sentimentality blur his focus and pulverised his friend and fellow Spaniard Carlos Moya 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 to set up a semifinal with Serb Novak Djokovic.

The brutal destruction took Nadal's Roland Garros record to 19-0 and more significantly, it kept him in line to match Bjorn Borg's hat-trick of trophies achieved in 1980.

Ominously for his rivals, Nadal declared: “I'm playing better than I was last year.” As the second seed's charge towards the title gathered pace, he also kept alive hopes of a final showdown with Roger Federer who will take on Russia's Nikolay Davydenko in the other semifinal.

Later, Novak Djokovic ended the giant-killing run of Russian Igor Andreev with a relentless 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 exhibition to became the first Serbian man to take his place amongst the last four in Paris. 

Djokovic's reward for such a dynamic display is a date with the double French Open champion, a man no one has ever beaten at the claycourt Grand Slam in Paris.

The task will be all the more difficult as Djokovic has made it this far without facing a single player in the world top 50.

Thirty-year-old Moya also had visions of progressing further in the tournament. But to do that he had to find a way past a player more than nine years his junior. Nadal was still crafting his claycourt skills in 1998 as a precocious 12-year-old when Moya lifted the Musketeers' Cup. Keen that others should benefit from his triumph, Moya went back home and passed on some tips to his young friend. On Wednesday, it did not even cross Nadal's mind to repay the favour. From the moment Nadal bounded on court, he was out to do damage. Unleashing his forehands with ferocious power, Nadal got the first break at 3-2 in the first set when Moya's shot kissed the tape and cruelly rolled back on to his own side of the court.

Nadal swiftly went on to pocket the first set and the second flashed by even quicker. Facing three set points on his serve, Moya looked up to the heavens for help. His prayers seemed to have been answered when he produced a stunning reflex volley from the baseline to lob Nadal and save the first. While his spirit was willing, his body was slowly letting him down and that proved to be Moya's last hurrah as Nadal roared through the last eight games to end his friend's torment.