Rafael Nadal moved closer to a record seventh French Open title and improved to 50-1 for his career at the tournament by beating 12th-seeded Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-3 in the quarterfinals yesterday.
Nadal has won all 15 sets he’s played this year at Roland Garros.
Only Nadal and Bjorn Borg have won six French Open championships. The 26-year-old Spaniard is also seeking his 11th Grand Slam trophy, which would tie him with Borg and Rod Laver for the fourth-most in history.
Nadal’s only French Open loss came in the fourth round against Robin Soderling in 2009.
Nadal’s next match will be against the winner of a quarterfinal between David Ferrer and Andy Murray that was delayed early in the third set when a bigger rain shower passed through, a few minutes after Nadal had left the court.
It means he’ll have a few hours of extra rest before the semifinals tomorrow, though he hardly needs it. Including the 2 hours, 46 minutes he took to dispatch Almagro, Nadal has spent a grand total of 10 hours, 37 minutes on court. Novak Djokovic, by comparison, spent a combined 8 hours, 27 minutes grinding out his past two matches - five-set wins over Andreas Seppi and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Djokovic saved four match points in his win on Tuesday against the Frenchman Tsonga and Nadal spent about as much time answering questions about that match as his own, which produced none of the drama.
“A player like Novak probably creates more chances to save tough matches like yesterday, where he’s in a trouble situation,” Nadal said. “He’s fighting, putting another ball inside the court and puts pressure all the time against Tsonga.”
In the match yesterday, Almagro pushed Nadal in the first set, taking him to a tiebreaker and cutting a 5-1 deficit to 5-4. But Nadal responded by closing out the set with a big forehand down the line that Almagro couldn’t handle, then a 121 mph serve that Almagro couldn’t return.
Four times over the next two sets, Almagro had chances to break. He made unforced errors on two of them, including a big forehand that landed wide - “In my opinion, it was not the right ball to hit,” Nadal said. Almagro also left an overhead short for an easy putaway and Nadal hit an unreturnable serve on the other break point.
Nothing to be ashamed of, though. Nadal has lost serve only once during the tournament and has saved 16 of 17 break points.
“His serve was really good today,” Almagro said. “At the important moments, he served better than (he did) the rest of the match. The key of the match is I had my chances and I didn’t catch it.”