Another great victory for Rafael Nadal!
The world no.1 had to face a very dangerous Tomas Berdych that was coming from a rather solid win against David Ferrer. The Czech has been servicing rather well during the last few matches and that was no different from this match as Tomas fired 13 aces to 83% points on his first serve.
But Rafa is Rafa… and when he sees that the door is a bit open he always tries to make a move. So the Spaniard got an early break in the very first game of the match to hold serve and win the first set 6-4. IN the second Tomas had an incredible start to get a “super-fast” 5-0 lead to win 6-1. The decider was a harsh battle, but eventually Rafa won it taking advantage of a sloppy service game from Tomas in the 8th game. (the Czech committed 2 double faults).
The match ended after 1 hour and 50 minutes with Rafa scoring the same amount of points as Tomas’. Match Stats.
Rafa
“I [achieved] my goal. I am in the semi-finals without losing a match. So that’s most important thing for me.
Any opponent will be very difficult. We are playing against the best players in the world. So if is del Potro, if is Federer, both players know very well how to beat me, on this surface especially. The only way to win the match of semi-finals is by playing my best match, playing fantastic tennis. I have one day off. One day tomorrow to keep playing well, keep trying to improve a little bit more.”
Next vs. Federer or Del Potro
Rafa will play the semifinal against either Del Potro (H2H 8-4 for Rafa, but Delpo won the last one) or Federer (H2H 21-10 for Rafa, 2-0 for Roger on indoor courts)