Rafael Nadal beats Leonard Mayer to reach the semi-finals – Abierto Mexiciano Telcel 2013
Former world number one, Rafael Nadal, is doing well at his third tournament since he returned from an eight-month injury layoff. He defeated the 25-year-old Argentine, Leonardo Mayer, in the quarter-final of the Abierto Mexiciano
Telcel on Wednesday at Acapulco. The final score line was 6-1, 7-5 in favour of the 26-year-old Spaniard who gathered his second head-to-head victory against the Argentine.
Nadal stated in an on-court post-match interview, “I'm enjoying playing tennis again. When you are recuperating there are always going to be bad days, but right now there are more good days than bad.”
The Spaniard took a 4-0 lead in the opening set by breaking her rival’s serve twice in a row. He was on course to register a bagel but the Argentine restored some respect by holding his serve in the fifth game. However, he couldn’t
prolong the match further and lost the opening set in just seven games. The fifth ranked Spaniard wasn’t on top of his game but still playing well enough to reign supreme over the 77th ranked Argentine.
Nadal faced a stern test in the second set and couldn’t test her opponent until the eighth game. He had two close serve games where he survived the breakpoint. So, the things looked to take a u-turn. There was no breakpoint witnessed
for the first 11 games despite a very tight battle in the 10th game that featured three deuces. Mayer couldn’t hold his nerve to enforce the tie-breaker round and fell apart in the 12th game of the match that proved to be the final action
from the first quarter-final at Acapulco.
Nadal marched on successfully and so did his two compatriots, David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro. The former professional is the top seed in the contestant and also the defending champion whilst the latter will face the likes of
Nadal in the semi-final of the tournament. The other successful semi-finalist apart from these three players is Fabio Fognini. So, both semi-finals will feature three Spaniards; hence, a hefty crowd is expected at the arena especially in the contest between
Almagro and Nadal.
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