Rafael Nadal continued his decimation through the clay court swing with a 6-4 6-4 victory over fellow Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena.
This match turned out to be one of Nadal’s toughest clay match of the season as the world number 77 looked fearless from the first ball. Baena broke the Nadal serve to gain a 2-0 lead as he hit some very good ground strokes to test the world number one’s defences.
However the ten time champion came back and proved why he is hard to beat right now, displaying some breath-taking down the line forehands as he broke twice and won the next three games. Despite Baena’s impressive service holds, he couldn’t break the top seed as he wrapped up the first set in 59 minutes.
The defending champion carried his momentum into the second set as he broke in the first game with some powerful forehands. Despite going a break down the unseeded Spaniard remained solid and resilient as he tried to implement different tactics to stop irresistible Nadal. The world number 77 did earn his rewards in the sixth game as he broke back, but the Spaniard was only preventing the predictable result. The world number one broke in the next game and eventually served out the match to book his place in the third round.
It is now 38 consecutive sets for the historic Spaniard as he looks to make even more history this week in Barcelona. He will now play another Spaniard in Guillermo Garcia-Lopez after he lead Kei Nishikori 6-3 before last week’s Monte-Carlo finalist pulled out with a right leg injury.
In other results at the Barcelona Open, Stefanos Tsitsipas marched into the last 16 after thumping 7th seed Diego Schwartzman 6-2 6-1. The Argentinian simply didn’t turn up as the young teenager gained his first top 20 win on a clay court. He will play 10th seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas in tomorrow’s third round matches after the Spaniard gained a much needed win over Brazil’s Rogerio Dutra Silva 3-6 6-3 6-4.
