Rafael Nadal records his 50th win at the French Open – Tennis News
King of Clay, Rafael Nadal, won his 50th match at the French Open by beating his compatriot, Nicolas Almagro, in the quarter-finals.
The Spanish hero faced some resistance at the beginning of the contest but then got full control over the proceedings to triumph in straight sets 7-6(4), 6-2, 6-3 and move to the last four in Paris.
After the end of the match, Nadal said, "You cannot expect to win an easy match in [the] quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, [the] quarter-finals of Roland Garros. [It] was a tough one, but I am through and I am very happy."
The Spaniard has not lost even a single set in this year’s championship so far, beating all his opponents mercilessly on the way to his seventh semi-final at the French Open.
This is Nadal’s eighth appearance at the Roland Garros and this year he has faced least resistance from his opponents so far, compared to all of his previous outings in Paris.
The Spaniard, who celebrated his 26th birthday few days back, started his campaign here in the best possible way, thrashing Simone Bolelli 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 in the first round. In the next match, Nadal outplayed Uzbekistan’s
Denis Istomin 6-2, 6-2, 6-0.
The left-hander gave his most lethal performance in the fourth round, when he crushed his inform Argentinean opponent, Juan Monaco, 6-2, 6-0, 6-0. You can have good idea about the level of dominance of a player when he allows the
13th seeded player to win just a couple of games in the round of 16 at a Grand Slam event.
Nadal has won six titles at the French Open and will make an open era record by overtaking one of the all time greats, Bjorn Borg, if he wins his seventh one here.
The Spaniard’s only loss here came at the 2009 championship, when he was surprised by Robin Soderling of Sweden in the fourth round.
The second ranked player will now meet another inform compatriot, David Ferrer, in the semi-finals.
Nadal said, talking about his next match, “We [have] played each other a lot of times. His game bothers everybody because he's one of the best players in the world on every surface - on clay especially. He's a complete player.
It's very difficult to play against him, because his movement is probably the best in the world and he's able to hit the ball very early a lot of the time.”
The 10-time Grand Slam winner leads 15-4 in the head to head record against Ferrer.
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