Rafael Nadal reaches Roland Garros quarter-finals
Rafael Nadal didn’t have things all his own way in his fourth-round match against Thomaz Bellucci, but the world’s best clay-court player eventually wrapped up the match 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 to book a place in the quarter-finals.
The fourth round was the point in the tournament where Nadal suffered the first defeat of his career at Roland Garros at the hands of Robin Soderling last year, but though Bellucci remained competitive until the end, the second seed never looked like being beaten at the same stage of proceedings this year.
Bellucci has ultimately become another on the long list of players Nadal has defeated at Roland Garros, but the match was an opportunity for the Brazilian to showcase the skills that took him to a career-high ranking of world No. 26 earlier this year. To his credit, Bellucci rose to the challenge.
The 22-year-old may have fallen away in the early stages of all but one of the European clay-court tournaments this spring (reaching the quarter-finals at the Barcelona Open was the exception), but Bellucci’s results still entitle him to the label of clay court specialist.
The South American won the second title of his career at the Movistar Open in Santiago this February, where he defeated Fernando Gonzalez in the semis and Juan Monaco in the final. All three of the ATP Tour finals Bellucci has played in have been on dirt courts, and it’s the only surface where his winning record exceeds his losing record.
All that pales in comparison to Nadal’s record on clay, where four French Open titles head his list of achievements.
That didn’t matter to Bellucci as he broke Nadal’s serve four times for the match, and refused to roll over when the world No. 2 established a 4-2 advantage in the third set, forcing him to serve for the match with two and a half hours already on the clock.
Nadal managed to do so without any problems, and he now moves through to the quarter-finals of the 2010 French Open without dropping a set.
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