Nadal Holds Off Almagro

His standing as the King of Clay is undisputed, but on Thursday top seed Rafael Nadal had to grind his way past another of the ATP World Tour’s most dominant clay-courters, Nicolas Almagro, at the Rio Open. In the battle of the Spaniards, Nadal steadied to hold off the former World No. 9 6-3, 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals of the tournament he won in 2014.

Nadal brought a dominant 347-31 record on clay into his second-round match – clearly the best among active players – while Almagro arrived with a 262-129 mark, the third best on tour. Almagro, though, would have to win just his second FedEx ATP Head2Head clash with his 29-year-old countryman, having won just four of the 36 sets played between the two in 14 previous encounters.

Nadal drew first blood, breaking for 3-1 in the opening set. He recovered from 0-40 while serving for the set to take it after 43 minutes. In the second set, the World No. 5 in the Emirates ATP Rankings had the chance to serve out the match after breaking to love for 5-4.

With the finish line in sight, however, Nadal wavered. He dropped serve before breaking Almagro again in what was the fifth straight break of serve between them. Serving for the match for a second time, Nadal made no mistake. He closed it out on his first match point in one hour and 41 minutes to book a rematch of his 2014 final against Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov.