Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal breezed through to the Qatar Open quarter-finals on Wednesday, raising hopes the pair will appear in a dream Doha Final on Sunday.
No. 1 seed Djokovic lost just four games in a comprehensive defeat of Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, with the world No. 1 triumphing 6-2, 6-2, in 1 hour and 9 minutes.
He was matched straight after on Center Court by Nadal, the tournament’s No. 2 seed, who swept aside Robin Haase 6-3, 6-2 in just 65 minutes.
Photo: EPA
Djokovic’s victory matched the result of his first-round clash against Dustin Brown and means the Serb has spent just two hours on court in the first two rounds.
Ominously for his rivals, Djokovic already looked to be getting back to his dominant form of last year, where he won three of the season’s four majors.
“Very pleased with the way I have started this season, two matches, straight sets,” he told reporters afterwards.
“Of course there are things that I think I can still do better, but again I have to be satisfied with how I played the first two matches,” he said.
In the warmest temperatures experienced in Doha so far this week — 20oC — Djokovic controlled the match from the very beginning.
He first broke Verdasco’s serve in the fourth game and was rarely troubled after that.
The Serb squandered another break point just two games later, but eventually closed out the set on Verdasco’s serve to go one up in just 31 minutes.
Verdasco, the world No. 49 who had beaten Djokovic four times in their 11 previous meetings, offered some resistance in the second set, but only enough to delay the inevitable.
The Spaniard, who might have been feeling the effects of his first-round victory less than 24 hours before, missed two break opportunities in the second set and was made to pay.
The Serb is set to play the No. 8 seed, Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer, in the last eight.
It was in the third round last year that Djokovic crashed out of the Qatar Open, losing to Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic.
Nadal was just as impressive in his victory over Haase. He broke the Dutchman early on and never looked back.
“[I am] just very happy to be through, I think I played a very strong match,” the Spaniard said. “I think I returned so well tonight. And the serve was a little bit worse than yesterday, but in general, I played much better than yesterday, no? So [I am] very happy with the victory and with the level of tennis.”
Nadal had struggled in the first round on Tuesday, finally coming through after dropping the first set against compatriot Pablo Carreno Busta.
He plays Andrey Kuznetsov in the last eight.
No. 3 seed Tomas Berdych was also through to the quarter-finals after the Czech beat Bosnia’s Damir Dzhumar 6-0, 6-4 in a one-sided match.
He next plays British qualifier Kyle Edmund, who won a third-set tiebreaker against Daniel Munoz-De La Nava 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (7/3).
Earlier Jeremy Chardy won an all-French clash beating Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-2, 6-4.
Chardy is slated to play the surprise player of the tournament, Ukraine’s Illya Marchenko, who followed up his impressive first-round defeat of defending champion David Ferrer with a 6-4, 6-2 victory on Tuesday over Teymuraz Gabashvili.
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