The greatest tennis matches, the mano-a-mano duels that echo through the pages of time, manage to connect the sport’s fans with a proud and storied past. Friday night in Melbourne, Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco created a consummate classic that will age gracefully in the longer run of history.

Less than seven months after his unforgettable 4-hour, 48-minute win over Roger Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final, Nadal reached his first Australian Open championship match with a survival act of similar proportions. Pushed to the limit by a fearless and unyielding opponent, Nadal responded at crunch time to hold off Verdasco, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (1), 6-4, in a marathon encounter that took 5 hours and 14 minutes, the longest match in Australian Open history. Nadal’s semifinal opponent might not have been Federer, but the shotmaking displayed on a pleasant evening in Rod Laver Arena was worthy of the Swiss superstar, so much so that Nadal will now play the very same man in Sunday’s final.

Before earning the right to play Federer, Nadal had to survive by the smallest of margins against a No. 14 seed who maximized his talents. The 25-year-old Verdasco dictated most of the match and stayed with Nadal during the third and fourth sets, when his younger opponent looked to be the fresher man. Verdasco might have committed 76 unforced errors in this match, but he accumulated 95 winners as well, for a sterling plus-19 winner-to-error margin. Realizing that he couldn’t allow Nadal to dictate extended rallies with the Mallorcan’s punishing forehand, Verdasco refused to take a quiet beating. Instead, the first-time Grand Slam semifinalist–perhaps learning from Andy Roddick’s inadequate semifinal showing against Federer the night before–went for broke on many of his groundstokes, concscious of the need to rob Nadal of time. By playing a power-based game, Verdasco used the only plan that made sense in this tussle. Balancing high risks with high rewards, Verdasco was improbably able to walk that fine line on a consistent basis, and that’s why this match remained close from start to finish.

The most significant statistic of the match revealed Verdasco’s tenacity under fire: While the 14th-seeded veteran got just 4 break point looks on Rafa’s serve (converting two of them), Verdasco was able to save 16 of his own 20 break points. By hitting his best serves on the evening’s biggest situations, Verdasco did the opposite of what most underdogs usually produce in their first taste of a slam semifinal.

Whereas most tennis professionals will serve aces and hit service winners in the early and relaxed stages of a set–before faltering under pressure in the business end of the proceedings–Verdasco managed to turn the script in his direction. Merely decent on points that came early in each set, Verdasco would save break points and elevate his game late in each stanza to maintain competitive balance. The 22-year-old Nadal, one of the best big-point players on tour, got erased and rebuked in many meaningful moments not only because Verdasco’s power overwhelmed him, but because it surprised him as well.

Entering this match, Nadal had a 6-0  career record against his fellow Spaniard; Verdasco did not represent an unfamiliar or unheard-of opponent. Realizing the kind of player Verdasco had once been, Nadal found it hard to believe at times that his 25-year-0ld foe could suddenly put together such a mature match under particularly weighty circumstances. With each supercharged forehand, Verdasco eroded Nadal’s typically impregnable sense of self confidence, getting under the skin of the No. 1 player in the world. All the saved break points, all the escapes from trouble, enabled the underdog to take the heavy favorite to three tiebreak sets, and ultimately win two of them.

Verdasco might have been lucky to win the first-set tiebreak, as a net-cord on a ball that appeared to be going wide came back into the court for a surprise winner. But what needs to be remembered about that pivotal occurrence is that it took place with Verdasco leading, 5-4, after overcoming a 3-1 deficit. By earning an advantage at the time of his fortuitous bounce, Verdasco put himself in position to gain maximum benefit from the fates. Had he not emerged from a two-point deficit, that net-cord would have been forgotten in the larger scheme of things. But because  Verdasco rebounded in the earlier stages of that tiebreak, he managed to take the first set when fortune helped him along.

The third-set tiebreak–with the match even at one set apiece–was all Nadal, as Verdasco badly misfired on three very makeable groundstrokes. With both wings breaking down and his body language sagging, it seemed very hard to believe that Verdasco, down two sets to one, had anything left in the tank.

Just when the tennis world was ready to write him off yet again, Verdasco found enough willpower (and adrenaline) to emerge from the depths and give this match the classic status it so richly deserved. For all of his physical struggles (Verdasco received rubdowns from the ATP trainer at the 1-2 and 2-3 changeovers in the fourth set), the 25-year-old held serve six times in the fourth stanza without facing a single break point. The remarkable display–at a time when his legs appeared to be gone–kept Verdasco in the arena, with a proverbial puncher’s chance of victory. Given the opportunity of a fourth-set tiebreak, Verdasco emptied his insides one more time, and amazingly, his persistence would be rewarded.

Somehow shaking off cramps and tightness, Verdasco played a virtually perfect tiebreak to throttle a man–Nadal–who rarely gets tossed around. Crushing laser-beam winners from all angles, Verdasco won seven of the tiebreak’s eight points to force a fifth set. In a match where the final point total would have Nadal winning by a single number, 193 to 192, the stage was ready for the deciding set, in which a handful of points would tell the story.

After digging out of love-30 at 4-all in the fifth, Nadal–his nose in front at 5-4–converted his final break point when Verdasco double-faulted. The ending struck a false note, but the previous 5 hours and 14 minutes represented the most beautiful of tennis symphonies.

Rafael Nadal might be preparing to face Roger Federer in less than 48 hours, but the Spaniard just completed a match that Federer would have been proud to play in. Nadal and Federer will chase history on Sunday, but in this fabulous Friday fistfight, Nadal and a gallant countryman created enough lasting memories in their own right.