Tennis Latest: Rafael Nadal breezes into Semi finals; Nieminen defeats Melzer
ATP World Tour winner Rafael Nadal recorded another impressive victory as he advanced into the semi final of the PTT Thailand Open Men’s event in
Bangkok. The twenty four year old Rafa surrendered only three points on his opening serve as he breezed past Mikhail Kukushkin in a two setter clash at the ATP World Tour 250 hard surface tennis competition in
Bangkok. The final match score was 6-2, 6-3.
The Spaniard picked up where he left off in his first clash of the championship - in which he missed only two points of the opening serve. The number one seed, whose serve was inspired by Jack Nicklaus, a golf legend from
the United States of America, managed to break Kukushkin’s serve on a total of three occasions from eight break points as he claimed the win in seventy one minutes on Friday.
Nadal is through to his eleventh semi final in what has been a remarkable year. The Manacor native is currently on a nine-match winning streak, after successfully completing his career Grand Slam at the Flushing Meadows,
beating Novak Djokovic back in September.
Rafael will next meet either Guillermo Garcia Lopez or Ernest Gulbis in
Bangkok.
Meanwhile, Jarkko Nieminen from Finland dispatched Jurgen Melzer in a two setter clash on Friday. The final match score was 6-3, 7-6(4).
“I have had a new coach since Wimbledon, working with Jan de Witt. We have worked on a lot of things, especially the serve, and everything takes time to take shape,” declared Nieminen, who lost a
total of thirteen points on serve and smashed eight aces.
He further added, “I am twenty nine years old and have been doing the same things for a long time, so it takes a while to implement changes into my game but I think I am serving better than ever now. I am feeling very good
and it is very satisfying to get through to the semi-finals here.”
Jurgen, currently ranked number eleven in the world, dropped to a mark of 4-6 in ATP World Tour quarters this year.
Nieminen, as a result of today’s win, will next take on 2007 Thailand Open runner up Benjamin Becker. The German required only fifty eight minutes to dispatch his countryman Daniel Brands in a total of two sets. The final
match score was 6-4, 6-2. The pair previously played in the opening round of the United States Open in
New York.
Benjamin, 29, has lost in two ATP World Tour semis in 2010; in
Halle at the hands of Hewitt and at the UNICEF Open event where Tipsarevic dispatched Becker in straight sets.
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