Nearly 14 years after their first meeting as professionals, Rafael Nadal maintained order by beating Spanish countryman Albert Montanes 6-2, 6-2 to make the Barcelona Open quarter-finals on Thursday.
Nadal has yet to drop a set in six tour-level and challenger matches against Montanes. They exchanged early breaks, but the top-seeded Nadal soon took control.
Nadal broke serve five times and had 24 winners against only nine for Montanes, a wild card.
Photo: AFP
“I had a great forehand today and the conditions were much better than yesterday,” said Nadal, who was 16 when he beat Montanes for the first time at a challenger in Barcelona.
Coming off his first title of the year at the Monte Carlo Masters last week, Nadal next faces Italy’s Fabio Fognini, who defeated eighth-seeded Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-3, 6-2.
Fognini eliminated Nadal in the third round of Barcelona last year, among his three wins over Nadal last year, including a five-setter in the third round at the US Open.
“Tomorrow will be a tough match against Fognini, he beat me three times last year and it was an up and down against him,” Nadal said.
Nadal is trying to win his ninth title at the Barcelona Open, and first since 2013. He is on a seven-match winning streak.
Second-seeded Kei Nishikori, the two-time defending champion, advanced to the quarter-finals by beating Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 7-5.
Nishikori lost serve at 5-4 in the second set, but broke back in the following game to eventually clinch the third-round victory. It was his 12th straight win in Barcelona.
Nishikori is set to play 11th-seeded Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov, who defeated Russian qualifier Karen Khachanov 6-4, 7-5 behind 10 aces.
“It will be a very complicated match,” Nishikori said. “He is difficult to play, serves well, and uses the slice a lot. We are very good friends so it will be interesting.”
Also, Malek Jaziri converted only two of 12 break points, but was able to defeat Alexander Zverev of Germany 7-6 (5), 6-4 to set up a quarter-final against sixth-seeded Benoit Paire of France, who eliminated ninth-seeded Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 6-2, 6-4.
BRD Nastase Tiriac
TROPHY
By Gavin Meakin
Staff writer, with AP, BUCHAREST
The Netherlands’ Robin Haase upset top-seeded Bernard Tomic of Australia 7-6 (4), 5-7, 6-3 in the second round of the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy in Bucharest on Thursday.
The win means Haase faces Spain’s Fernando Verdasco in the quarter-finals, after the Spaniard downed Moldova’s Radu Albot 6-3, 6-1.
“It was tough to play today,” Haase was quoted as saying on the ATP Web site.
“It was his first match on clay and I could see it was difficult for him to get used to the conditions,” he said. “For me it was the second match here, so I knew what to expect. We had never played against each other before, so it was not easy. I just tried to make him play as much as possible and to be solid on important points.”
France’s Lucas Pouille made short work of second-seeded Ivo Karlovic, defeating the 2.1m-tall Croat 6-3, 6-4 in one hour. In the next round, the 22-year-old Frenchman is to take on seventh-seeded Italian player Paolo Lorenzi, who toppled Japan’s Taro Daniel 6-2, 6-0.
“I am happy with this second round,” Pouille said. “It was a good match, in line with how I played on Tuesday. I tried to be solid, to do simple things, and it worked well.”
In the other second-round matches, Argentina’s Federico Delbonis beat Ukraine’s Illya Marchenko 7-5, 6-2; Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez defeated Britain’s Kyle Edmund 6-3, 6-3; Argentina’s Guido Pella toppled Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-1, 3-6, 6-2; and Italy’s Marco Cecchinato won against Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Damir Dzhumhur 6-3, 7-6 (3).
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