Rafael Nadal eases past Benoit Paire to reach the quarters – Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell 2013
As is was already anticipated, the King of Clay, Rafael Nadal, stormed his way into the quarter-final round of the clay-court tournament, Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, on Friday afternoon. The former world number one took merely one hour and 26 minutes to
dispose of the 33rd ranked Frenchman, Benoit Paire, in straight sets, 7-6(2), 6-2.
Defending his title at Barcelona, Nadal has been absolutely sublime in the clay-court swing of 2013 ATP season. Although he lost the Monte Carlo Masters title to the reigning world number one, Novak Djokovic, he is still very positive to bag the Barcelona
crown on his home soil. The world number five has already claimed three ATP championship titles this year and has an impressive winning record of 23-2.
Paire posed some resistance in the opening set of the match but gradually lost his steam as the contest continued. He suffered a blow from the Spaniard in the very first game of the match and fell to 0-2 trail. The Frenchman held his next two serves before
nailing a crucial serve break to take the scores to 3-3. Nadal kept playing his natural game and avoided spilling too many unforced errors. The score board kept ticking on even terms and no further break points were witnessed in the set. After the score being
dead-locked at 6-6, a tie-breaker round came into play. Nadal raced away to 6-2 in the tie-breaker round after striking a couple of mini-breaks. He closed out the opener at 7-6(2) to get into the driving seat of the match.
The second set witnessed a steady start, with both players holding their opening two serves comprehensively. Nadal shifted his gears from there onwards and stung two consecutive break points, in the fifth and seventh games respectively. Paire couldn’t do
much to contain the fury of the King of Clay and had no option but to submit the second set at 2-6.
Nadal will play his quarter-final match either against the sixth seeded Japanese, Kei Nishikori, or the unseeded local contestant, Albert Ramos, Later this week. Thomaz Bellucci, Nicolas Almagro, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Juan Monaco are the other players
to make to the quarter-finals.
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