Rafael Nadal needed to battle again from a set all the way down to defeat Belarus qualifier Ilya Ivashka on Wednesday as the Spaniard survived an early take a look at in his bid to win the Barcelona title for the twelfth time.
The 34-year-old Nadal, who suffered a shock quarter-final exit by the hands of Andrey Rublev within the Monte Carlo Masters final week, dropped the primary set towards the world 111 earlier than pulling by 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.
It was Nadal’s 62nd win within the match towards simply 4 defeats.
“He played well. He played at a very high level, and I didn’t, especially at the beginning,” mentioned Nadal who has misplaced solely as soon as on clay to a participant exterior the highest 100 and that was 17 years in the past.
“Then I think I changed a little bit the way I played. I was more aggressive later, and the match changed a lot.
“I’m happy I fought hard today to be in the third round. That’s what I needed after the loss at Monte Carlo,” he added.
In Thursday’s quarter-final, Nadal will face Japan’s Kei Nishikori, the 2014 and 2015 Barcelona champion, who defeated Chile’s Christian Garin 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-1.
Nishikori has two profession wins over Nadal in 13 conferences however has by no means received the higher of the world quantity three on clay.
(*111*) Italian Fabio Fognini was defaulted from the occasion for verbally abusing a line decide.
The 33-year-old was trailing world quantity 147 Bernabe Zapata Miralles 6-0, 4-4 when he clashed with the official and was defaulted by the umpire for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Fognini is one in every of solely a small variety of gamers to have been defaulted from a match.
The most well-known incident concerned world primary Novak Djokovic who was disqualified from the 2020 US Open for hitting a line decide with a ball.
Nick Kyrgios was defaulted on the Rome match in 2019 after hurling a chair on to the courtroom.
Fognini, the world quantity 27, is not any stranger to being disqualified.
At the 2017 US Open, he was booted out of the match and fined $24,000 for a collection of insults geared toward a feminine chair umpire.
Also learn: French Open Today: Novak Djokovic vs Rafael Nadal in Men’s Singles Final
Elsewhere on Wednesday, Monte Carlo champion and second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas eased previous Spain’s Jaume Munar 6-0, 6-2.
It was a much more comfy afternoon for the Greek than the final time he confronted Munar.
That was on the 2020 French Open the place he dropped the primary two units earlier than profitable their first spherical tie.
Monte Carlo runner-up Rublev, seeded three, additionally progressed with a cushty 6-4, 6-3 win over Italian fortunate loser Federico Gaio.
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