Rafael Nadal destroys French hopes; advances at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters
Top seeded Spaniard Rafael Nadal moves closer to win his seventh consecutive title here at Monte Carlo County Club as he advanced to last eight. He eased past 13th seeded French Richard Gasquet in straight sets on Thursday.
World number one Nadal gave a top notch performance in the match to down the lower ranked Frenchman in one hour and 34 minutes at Monte Carlo Country Club. He maintained his unbeaten record by seeing off Frenchman in a 6-2, 6-4
victory for a 34th consecutive win at Monte Carlo. The Spaniard also extended his lead in the head-to-head series against Gasquet by 8-0.
The Spanish star is in his best form and made a final berth at Indian Wells and Miami before entering the Rolex Masters in Monaco. He entered this tournament confidently and in the opening set, played his best tennis breaking the
Frenchman’s serve in the very first game with aggressive forehands. Later he held his entire serves spectacularly and broke Gasquet’s serve again in the seventh game to clinch the set with 6-2 win.
The Spanish seed had a much better first serve share of 71 percent as compared to Gasquet’s 47 percent and registered an assuring 76 percent win on it. He converted two out of four breakpoint opportunities to his advantage and
had a much higher return point winning percentage as well.
He kept his momentum rolling into the second set as he held his opening serve at 40-0. Nadal later kept his serves in the proceeding games until he exchanged breaks in the seventh and eighth game to level the scores at 4-4. The
Spaniard then unleashed his skills to convert another breakpoint opportunity to his advantage in the ninth game and sealed the set by holding on to his serve in the tenth with a 6-4 score line.
The Spaniard committed two double faults. He had an acceptable first serve share of 62 percent as opposed to Frenchman’s 55 percent but earned an amazing 75 percent win on it. In addition to this, Nadal had an amazing 48 percent
win on his return points which made the difference.
Nadal sealed his eighth win without a loss by clobbering 33 winners and hammering three ferocious aces. He converted four out of nine breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to sail into a comfortable win.
"There were tough games at the beginning, but I won them both," said Nadal
The Frenchman on the other side of net, despite committing less unforced errors and zero double faults, stood no chance against the clay court champion. He found only a single breakpoint opportunity which he capitalized, failing
to alter in inevitable
Nadal will face the Croatian Ivan Ljubicic, who upset 5th seeded wild card entrant, Czech Tomas Berdych in straight sets, in the quarter-finals.
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