Rafael Nadal has pulled off some remarkable wins in his long and illustrious career but he would be hard pushed to find one more remarkable, simply more unbelievable than his quarter-final victory on Wednesday.

From being on the verge of pulling out with injury, he somehow found a way to survive four hours and 21 minutes and five sets against Taylor Fritz 3-6, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(4).

“It’s obvious that it has been a tough afternoon against a great player,” Nadal said. “From my personal side, it was not an easy match at all. So I’m just very happy to be in the semi-finals.

“The body in general is fine but of course in the abdominals, something is not going well, to be honest. I had to find a way to serve a little bit different. For a lot of moments, I was thinking that I would not be able to finish the match but, I don’t know, the court, the energy [kept me going].”

At the start, the gameplan was easy enough for Fritz: play to your strengths and, whatever you do, do not play to the 22-time Grand Slam champion’s strengths. At least that eliminated the possibility of over-thinking the situation.

“I feel like decision-making is easy,” he said before it all began. “I don’t really second-guess shots like I would if I’m playing someone that I’m supposed to beat.

“Against someone like Rafa, it’s easy to always make the aggressive decision and kind of, like, play freer.”

And a free-flowing Fritz is not what Nadal wanted to see, not with his injury problems. First impressions can be deceptive and the spring in the Spaniard’s step at the very start of the match hid the fact that he was in trouble.

It all looked remarkably similar to Novak Djokovic’s quarter-final the previous day: a brilliant start, an unexpected break and the sudden boost of confidence to the opponent. First set gone.

Nadal stopped the run of five straight games for the American by holding and then breaking serve at the start of the second set but it soon became clear to everyone that something was not right.

Nadal’s service speed was dropping and there were times when he doubled over with his hands on his knees after his service action was completed. At 4-3, he called for the trainer.

As he lifted his shirt and pointed to the problem, the taping already there revealed a problem with a right abdominal muscle. While he waited for the trainer to appear, Nadal looked to his box and shook his head. This did not look good.

Djokovic had come back from two sets down the day before but he was fully fit. Nadal was doing all he could to hang on in the second set and it was obvious that the injury was affecting his movement, his serve and his backhand.

No matter: Nadal, injured or not, is still a ferocious competitor. He will never give up. He may not get the result he craves but he will never give up.

Fritz, meanwhile, had to remember to stop thinking.

One player’s injury messes with the opponent’s mind. Should you change your gameplan? Do you just try to make him run? Or do you go for clean winners? And given that he is likely to try to rip winners at every opportunity to keep the points short, how do you keep the ball away from him?

And while all that was going through Fritz’s mind, Nadal had broken serve and stolen the second set from under the American’s nose.

As the second week of The Championships began, Nadal was beginning his 873rd consecutive week in the world’s top 10 (unsurprisingly, that is a record). To make that a little more digestible: that is a little over 16 years and nine months as one the 10 best players on the planet.

That staggering level of consistency, despite all the injury problems he has endured, means he has plenty of experience in dealing with adversity and finding a way to win. This time, though, he really was up against it.

Fritz was trying to do what he had set out to do – he kept pumping down those big serves and finding ways to unleash his forehand. And above all else, he was working as hard as he knew how to keep his focus on his side of the court. That won him the third set.

But gradually, Fritz’s concentration began to fray. He was playing to Nadal’s forehand (and many a man has paid a huge price for that) and he did not know what do with the Spaniard’s serve. There was little difference in pace between the first and second serve but it was the placement that was frustrating Fritz.

As Djokovic had pointed out after his match with Jannik Sinner: Sinner had nothing to lose at the start of the match but he certainly had something to lose when he was two sets to love up. Experience counts in moments like those.

Sure enough, the tension got to Fritz in the fourth set and once into the fifth, Nadal’s forehand grabbed the momentum and dragged it back to his side of the court and into the match tie-break. That is what experienced serial champions do.

Nadal and his injured abs were through to face Nick Kyrgios on Friday.

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