'Are you kidding': Incredible Rafa Nadal moment leaves tennis fans in awe

Canadian Open fans were treated to one of the points of the tournament during Rafael Nadal’s come-from-behind quarter-final victory over Fabio Fognini.

Top-seeded Nadal rallied to reach the Canadian Open semi-finals on Friday night (Saturday AEST), beating No.7 seed Fognini of Italy 2-6 6-1 6-2.

The winner last year in Toronto for his fourth title at the event, Nadal won his 380th ATP Masters 1000 match, a day after breaking a tie with Roger Federer for the tour record.

Nadal has 82 singles victories, winning the French Open in June for his second title of the year.

The Spaniard overcame a slow start against Fognini to book his place in the last four.

However, the Italian claimed arguably the point of the match while trailing 3-1 in the second set.

The topsy-turvy point had a bit of everything from drop shots, volleys, lops, passing shots and even a tweeter from Nadal.

Having chased down everything that Fognini had thrown at him, Nadal's extraordinary defensive skills were finally breached as the Italian clinched an extraordinary rally with a deft volley at the net.

"Are you kidding me," one commentator exclaimed.

"Simply sensational. Raising the roof. A point dripping with quality, tricks, subtleties, you name it.

"What an athlete Nadal is and then the cheeky finish."

Nadal overcomes slow start in ruthless fashion

In the semi-finals, Nadal will face the winner of the late match between No.10 Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain and No.16 Gael Monfils of France.

"We talked a little bit with the team before the match that maybe sometimes if he was blocking the returns it was a chance to go to the net," Nadal told ATP.

"I think I'm serving well. This court is fast. It is important to be serving well. So after the first set, my feeling was [I had a] better percentage on the serve and that helps a lot."

Nadal said he was surprised with how quickly a disappointing first set got away from him.

"Honestly, I thought I started the first set playing well," he said.

"I lost 6-2, things went quick, I lost a bad game especially at 3-1. Not one first serve in so it was the second break and it was done.

"But at the same time I had the feeling that there was a big chance to be 3-0 for me.

"I started the second set thinking I was not playing bad, just things went so quick and everything against me.

"I just tried to be there, to be focused and to calm down a little bit the match because things were going too quick.

"I played a great game in the second [set] and he had a bad game in the second game. And after that, there was a big difference."

In the afternoon, Daniil Medvedev and Karen Khachanov set up an all-Russian semi-final.

The eighth-seeded Medvedev beat second-seeded Dominic Thiem of Austria 6-3 6-1, and the sixth-seeded Khachanov topped third-seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany 6-3 6-3.

With agencies