After a rain-delayed start to third-round action at the Barcelona Open BancSabadell on Thursday, top seed Rafael Nadal stormed into the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 6-2 win over fellow Spaniard Albert Montanes.
Nadal and Montanes first met 14 years ago, at a Challenger in Barcelona, when Nadal was just 16. On that occasion, it was Montanes who was the top seed, but he was one of the first players to catch a glimpse of just how good Nadal was going to be, falling to the then-261st-ranked qualifier in straight sets.
And it’s stayed that way in all of their subsequent meetings. Nadal has never lost a set against the 35-year-old Montanes and notched a fourth tour-level win over the right-hander in 68 minutes. Nadal broke serve five times and won 71 per cent of his service points in the dominant display.
“I started off very well and felt really good. I’m happy about the victory and very happy about the way I played today,” Nadal told Alex Corretja on court. “I had a great forehand today and the conditions were much better than yesterday.”
The 29-year-old Nadal is bidding to reclaim the title he won at this ATP World Tour 500 clay-court tournament in 2005-09 and 2011-13. He has a 45-3 event record and goes on to face Fabio Fognini for a place in the semi-finals. It was Fognini who cut short Nadal’s Barcelona campaign last year, beating the Mallorcan in the third round to hand him his earliest defeat at the tournament since 2003.
Fognini was a 6-3, 6-2 winner over eighth seed Viktor Troicki as he reached his first quarter-final since the first week of the season in Auckland (l. to Tsonga).
“Tomorrow will be a tough match against Fognini, he beat me three times last year and it was up and down against him.” said Nadal.
Nadal is on a seven-match winning streak, having last week captured a record-equalling 28th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, where he beat Dominic Thiem, Stan Wawrinka, Andy Murray and Gael Monfils. It was his 68th tour-level title in 100 finals.
