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Roger Federer hopes not to miss his last chance to play against Rafael Nadal after the withdrawal of the Spaniard from his Indian Wells semifinal, injured his right knee.
Nadal, seeded second, was treated in the knee during her quarter-final win over Karen Khachanov on Friday.
The Spaniard had a brief training session on Saturday before retiring.
"It's hard for me to accept all the things I'm going through in my career," Nadal said.
Swiss Federer has qualified for Sunday's final where he will face Dominic Thiem after the Austrian beat the Canadian Milos Raonic 7-6 (7-3) 6-7 (3-7) 6-4 .
"I'm obviously excited to be in the final, but not that way," said Federer, 37.
"We have had so many epic battles and I now know that each of them could be our last – was this our last chance? I hope not."
Nadal said: "My goal is to be healthy as many weeks as possible to continue playing and at the highest level possible.
"Sometimes I'm sad because I'm disadvantaged by all my opponents."
The 32-year-old has also retired from the Masters 1000 tournament next week in Miami with the injury.
Nadal and Federer, who have accumulated 37 Grand Slam titles, have not quarreled since 2017.
Nadal leads 23-15, but Federer has won his last five games.
"Things I can not control, I can not control"
Nadal only participated in one hard-field tournament in 2018 – the Rogers Cup in Canada, which he won – because of his injury issues.
He was forced to withdraw from his quarterfinal of the Australian Open in January 2018 and again at the semifinals of the US Open.
Nadal reached the final of this year's Australian Open, where he was defeated in consecutive sets by Novak Djokovic.
"I warmed up today and I thought my knee was not good enough to compete at the level I needed," said the 32-year-old.
"I'm just going to keep doing things that suit me and accept that sometimes these problems can happen.
"All that's in my hands, I'm fine, things that I can not control, I can not control."
The Spaniard added that he was confident of being ready for the Monte Carlo Masters in April, one of the first events of the clay season.
It was the 39th time that Nadal and Federer competed against each other and the fourth time at Indian Wells.
They met for the last time in the final of the Shanghai Masters two years ago, winning 6 to 4 6-3 by Federer.
S addressing reporters after his 7-6 (7-2) 7-6 (7-2) win over Russian Khachanov, Nadal said that he "could not guarantee my wake up tomorrow" .
"I like to play hard, but my body probably does not like it very much," he added.
"My feeling is that there are a lot of players who like to play hard, that's right, but their bodies do not like playing hard either."
Analysis
Russell Fuller, tennis correspondent on BBC Radio 5 Live
"I'm going to continue," Nadal said after the last setback.
He says he's going to keep adjusting his schedule – but the hard-field tournaments will remain on the schedule. In reality, he has little choice, half of the Grand Slam tournaments being played on this surface.
Nadal had hinted earlier in the week that he might be leaving Miami, and perhaps his participation in the hard-field events that will follow the US Open will be examined more closely.
In any case, he must often miss them. Since the beginning of 2018, Nadal has renounced eleven retirees, retired three times and has completed three.
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