It's the battle of the Swiss Master and the French showman on Friday night at the Australian Open, with Roger Federer on track for yet another final at Melbourne Park, if he can first get past excitement machine Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
The world No.1 and top seed, already an Australian Open champion three times over - in 2004, 2006 and 2007 - stretched his amazing streak of reaching at least the last four at the Grand Slams to 23 when he rallied from a slow start to beat Nikolay Davydenko in four sets on Wednesday.
Federer, the most prolific male in tennis history in terms of major victories having already claimed 15 in his career, has in fact only failed to reach the decider at the Grand Slams on three occasions during that run, here and at the French Open in 2005 and here again two years ago.
Tsonga could digest that information in one of two ways, either that Federer has been to 19 of the past 23 major finals, not having bowed out any earlier since crashing in the third round at Roland Garros in 2004, or that two of the three times he hasn't reached the final in that period have been at Melbourne Park.
And the 10th-seeded 24-year-old will also enter the match with fond memories of the pair's most recent encounter, which he won 7-6 (7-5) 1-6 7-6 (7-3) in the quarter-finals in Montreal last August.
But that result and the win Federer had for the loss of just five games in their only other meeting, in Madrid in 2008, both came in best-of-three-set matches, a far different proposition to their best-of-five equivalent at Grand Slam level.
Tsonga is unlikely to be overawed going up against Federer though, despite deferring to the champion in his post-match interview after seeing off Novak Djokovic, because he knows what it takes to win a semi-final at the year's opening major against one of the world's top players.
Two years ago he swept away world No.2 Rafael Nadal for the loss of just seven games to book his place in the final, only to go down in four sets after winning the first against Djokovic, so he'll no doubt have a burning ambition to atone for that result by making a major breakthrough here.
Federer will be the fresher of the two even though he needed 156 minutes to subdue Davydenko, the 28-year-old having been on court for a total of 10 hours 42 minutes as opposed to Tsonga who has been out there 17 minutes short of three more hours.
And Tsonga is coming off back-to-back five-setters, amazingly the first two of his career, in which he spent 213 minutes disposing of Spaniard Nicolas Almagro and then 232 minutes doing likewise to Djokovic.
Coupled with that extra exertion was the late finish to his commitments on Wednesday night, Tsonga not completing his post-match media conferences in English and then French until close to 2am.
Speaking before Tsonga had slugged it out with Djokovic, who played out the match but was hampered by a stomach bug in the lead-up and especially in the final two sets, Federer said he's expecting a 'tough' match regardless.
"Tsonga I think I've only played twice as far as I remember, so I don't know that much about him," Federer said.
"I think he's only played his first