The Proteas have never won a World Cup knockout match since their tournament debut in 1992, with a series of near-misses leaving them with the unwanted tag of "chokers".
But for de Villiers, history really is all in the past.
"All I can say is we're not going to choke tomorrow. We're going to play a good game of cricket and come out on top. Simple," he told reporters at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Tuesday.
"I think it's important to focus on what we've been doing well and try and do that tomorrow. We have certain strengths we like to focus on and not focus too much on the opposition.
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"We've got to (keep things) as simple as possible. Strike with the new ball, try and bowl them out, if we bat first get a big total and put them under pressure."
"I don't believe we've been awful, I feel we've had had a pretty decent tournament so far, finished second in the log (Pool)," said de Villiers.
"We had a tough game against India, where things could have been different, I believe.
"That's about it. Other than that, we've played some good cricket. Against Pakistan, I wasn't too upset about that except for the fact we didn't show enough fight with the bat. But we bowled exceptionally well.