Rafael Nadal is back to his (very high) standards.
The previous round he had a not-so-easy win against the upcoming (but still very young) Tomic.
Today he had to play against a more seasoned and dangerous player that had real chances to produce an upset.
So the Spaniard had to go back to his tennis, and he did it… He put pressure on Cilic from the very beginning to win the opening set with a comfortable 6-2.
In the second set the Croatian tried to fight back with a better tennis, but Nadal had a rock solid game and eventually he won the second set by 6-4.
At that point there was no drama and… the Spaniard won the last set with another easy score line (6-3).
“Before the match I was a little bit nervous,†Nadal said “I tried to play with very high intensity and played my best match here at the Australian Open this year.â€
‘I’m not sweating so much, the other days I was sweating like crazy, so today was the first day I really felt perfect physically so that’s the most important thing.’
There is a good and a bad news for Nadal in his part of the tournament draw.
The good news is that Soderling, a tennis player that usually causes many problems to the Spaniard, was surprisingly defeated in 5 sets by the unseeded 22-year-old Alexander Dolgopolov (1-6 6-3 6-1 4-6 6-2).
The bad news is that Murray looks to be in unbelievable shape: he humiliated Melzer ( a difficult player) 6-3 6-1 6-1.
