Different fates for Rafa and his friends in their openers in Brazil.
It took 78 minutes for Rafa to defeat Brazilian Joao Sousa (qualifier and no.140) 6-3 6-4.The King of clay didn’t concede a single break to win 55 points vs Souza’s 46 (not big difference to tell the truth…. just 9 points!).
Rafa will play against Berlocq (7-6 (7) 6-4 on Ramos) in the quarters. This will be the first match between the two.
Seed no.2 Nicolas Almagro had lots of problems to defeat Czech qualifier (world no.151) Paul Capdeville 6-4 6-7(3) 6-2 in 1 hour and 46 minutes.
Nicolas will play the quarters against Nlabansian (6-4 6-2 on Pella). Head to head is 3-2 for Nalbandian. 2-1 for Almagro on clay.
Pico Monaco lost his 3rd consecutive opener, this time with Bolelli (7-5 6-2). Monaco is coming from an horrible sequence of lost matches in ATP events as he won only 1 match in the last 7 matches! (not counting the Davis Cup)…. not good for the world no.15.
