Rome, May 12:

Put Rafael Nadal on a clay court in Rome and the records start falling.

Two years ago, the Spaniard beat Guillermo Coria to win the Rome Masters in 5 hours, 14 minutes — the longest final in the Open Era.

Last year, Nadal edged Roger Federer in a fifth-set tie breaker for the championship and tied Guillermo Vilas’ record 53-match winning streak on clay. Nadal’s streak is still going and it reached 75 on Friday with a 6-2, 6-3 quarter-final win over Novak Djokovic. That matched John McEnroe for the longest winning streak on one surface.

McEnroe, who watched Friday’s match from a courtside seat, had a 75-match winning streak on indoor-carpet between September 1983 and April 1985. Nadal can break McEnroe’s record in semi-finals against fourth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko, who rallied to beat Tommy Robredo 1-6, 6-3, 6-3. If he wins the tournament, Nadal would set another mark, becoming the first player to win this French Open warmup three consecutive times.

Earlier, Filippo Volandri followed his win over Roger Federer by beating 12th-seeded Tomas Berdych 6-2, 6-3, becoming the first Italian to reach the final four in Rome since Adriano Panatta in 1978. Panatta also was the last Italian to win the tournament, in 1976.

Volandri will next play sixth-seeded Fernando Gonzalez, who defeated Juan Ignacio Chela 6-3, 6-4.