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Nadal win sets up semi with Djokovic

Spanish player Rafael Nadal serves to compatriot Nicolas Almagro during their French Open quarter-final at Roland Garros in Paris on Tuesday. PHOTO: AFP

Three-time defending French Open champion Rafael Nadal matched the most lopsided Grand Slam victory of his career on Tuesday, defeating fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro 6-1, 6-1, 6-1.

The drubbing equaled the standard Nadal set in his previous victory, when he lost three games against another Spaniard, Fernando Verdasco.

Nadal was giving the center-court crowd a thumbs-up signal following his triumph shortly after Djokovic completed a much more arduous win on Court Suzanne Lenglen. He needed more than three hours to eliminate childhood friend Ernests Gulbis 7-5, 7-6 (3), 7-5.

The No. 3-seeded Djokovic will face No. 2 Nadal tomorrow.

With less fanfare, No. 2-seeded Ana Ivanovic and No. 3 Jelena Jankovic advanced and will meet in the women’s semi-finals today.

Ivanovic beat Patty Schnyder 6-3, 6-2, and Jankovic defeated unseeded Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 6-2.

Nadal celebrated his 22nd birthday with nearly flawless tennis, committing only nine unforced errors. He denied his matches are as stress-free as he makes them appear.

“I have the same pressure like everybody,” he said. “I feel nervous before the match always. The result was calm, but the feeling not.”

Nadal lost the first game, then won nine in a row — a streak rivaling his previous match, when he swept 10 in a row. The latest rout was especially striking because the No. 19-seeded Almagro is no slouch on clay, with a tour-high 29 victories on the surface this season.

It was only the third time a man has lost fewer than four games in a Grand Slam quarter-final in the Open era. It was a record for that era at the French Open.

“Impressive,” Djokovic said. “He has been playing better and better.”

Djokovic’s match was much more competitive, largely because he failed to convert his first 11 break-point chances. He came through on the 12th to end the first set, thanks to an unforced error by Gulbis, then raised his arms in mock triumph.

Djokovic continued to struggle in the second set, falling behind 3-1, and then began to strike the ball more crisply and consistently. In the tiebreaker he took the lead for good by hitting an ace and winning a 19-shot rally on the first two points, and in the third set he won eight of the final nine points to close out the victory.

“I tried to play a bit more patient and more safe in certain moments,” Djokovic said. “But this is not going to be the case in the next match.”

The 19-year-old Gulbis showed his first Grand Slam quarter-final berth was no fluke, displaying a mix of power and finesse that kept Djokovic off balance. The two practiced together as youngsters at a German tennis academy, and when their match ended, Djokovic gave Gulbis a pat on the chest as both smiled.

“If somebody would tell us when we were 12 or 13 when we were practicing that we would play on Suzanne Lenglen in a quarter-final, I wouldn’t believe it,” Gulbis said. “But I’m still younger, so I think today he won with experience.”

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