MELBOURNE, Australia : The Spanish Matador and The Swiss Maestro were up against each other in the 1st Men's semi-final of  the Australian Open 2012 on Thursday. The two undoubtedly greatest players of all time were facing each other in the semi-final stage of a Grandslam event after a period of nearly 7 years, the last time the duo squared off was in the semi-final of Roland Garros 2005 . In a match which was very eagerly awaited from the  very day the draws were announced, Rafael Nadal came out victorious in a nerve wrecking four-set thriller .

           The Women's Finalists were also decided on Thursday with the former World No.1 Maria Sharapova and the No.1 spot-seeker Victoria Azarenka booking their places in the Open's finale.

Everyone was hoping for Misbah Ul Haq to continue his attacking batting from Day 1. A handy 20-30 runs were expected from the last 3 wickets of Pakistan’s first innings. Little did we know that all the three wickets would fall for just 1 run and Pakistan would end their innings at a meager total of 257 runs on a pitch completely suitable for batting. Misbah couldn’t reach his deserving century and got trapped by Stuart Broad LBW after adding just a run to his tally of 84 runs. Anderson grabbed the remaining two wickets in the same over by trapping Saeed Ajmal LBW for a duck and Junaid Khan off a healthy nick towards the slip. England had started the day on a high.

The pitch has absolutely nothing in it for the fast bowlers and from the looks of it, there’s not much turn for the spinners as well. It is a ridiculously slow pitch and one has to feel sorry for the bowlers. England’s openers started cautiously and lost their first wicket at the score of 27 when Andrew Strauss got out at 11 runs to an inside edge off Muhammad Hafeez’s clever off-spin bowling; caught by Asad Shafiq at silly point. In came Trott and together with a settled Alastair Cook formed a strengthening partnership of 139 runs.