Nadal beats countryman Ferrer in straight sets; Federer ousted in Miami

Rafael Nadal won a grinding two-hour battle with fellow Spaniard David Ferrer Tuesday to reach the Sony Ericsson Open quarter-finals as his comeback continues to gather momentum.

After a dour struggle in the first set in which both players traded heavy blows from the baseline, Nadal looked headed for a routine win when he raced to a 3-0 lead in the second. But Ferrer continued to attack and pushed Nadal all the way before the six-time Grand Slam champion triumphed 7-6(5), 6-4 in 1 hr., 57 mins.

Nadal is playing just his fourth tournament of the season, but already boasts an impressive 15-3 mark on the year. At Indian Wells two weeks ago, in his first outing since retiring in the Australian Open quarter-finals with a right knee injury, Nadal reached the semi-finals and won the doubles title.

Nadal next meets powerful Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, against whom he owns a 4-1 lead in their head-to-head series. But Tsonga enjoyed a convincing win over Nadal in the 2008 Australian Open semi-finals. The winner of the Nadal-Tsonga match will play the winner of the Andy Roddick-Nicolas Almagro quarter-final.

Czech Tomas Berdych saved a match point in a pulsating third-set tie-break to snap an eight-match losing streak against Roger Federer and send the top seed crashing out of the Sony Ericsson Open Tuesday night.

In a riveting 2 hr., 51 min. contest that finished at 12.15 a.m. a record Tuesday night session crowd of 12,804 fans frequently broke into a chorus of ‘Roger, Roger’ to cheer on Federer, who had been within two points of defeat in the second set.

But, just as he had lost in a third-set tie-break after holding three match points against Marcos Baghdatis in his last outing in Indian Wells, the support of fans was not enough to spare Federer the same fate in Miami.

Federer had the match on his racquet at 6-5 in the deciding tie-break, but Berdych responded with two massive forehands – the shot that had troubled the Swiss all night – to set up his first match point, which he converted when Federer hit his 61st and final unforced error, sending a forehand long.


Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Singles - Fourth Round
[16] T Berdych (CZE) d. [1] R Federer (SUI) 64 67(3) 76(6)
[4] R Nadal (ESP) d. [15] D Ferrer (ESP) 76(5) 64
[5] R Soderling (SWE) d. [9] F Gonzalez (CHI) 60 67(3) 62
[6] A Roddick (USA) d. B Becker (GER) 76(4) 63
[10] F Verdasco (ESP) d. [7] M Cilic (CRO) 64 76(3)
[8] J Tsonga (FRA) d. [12] J Ferrero (ESP) 62 62
[13] M Youzhny (RUS) d. M Fish (USA) 61 10 ret. (back)
[33] N Almagro (ESP) d. [27] T Bellucci (BRA) 64 36 76(3)