Nadal Leads Seeded Men into French Open Fourth Round
May 28, 2011 · Print This Article
Roland Garros—Paris, France
Top seed and defending champ Rafael Nadal powered through into the fourth-round of the French Open on Saturday, capturing his easiest win of the event thus far over Antonio Veic, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0.
In a first time match between the two, Nadal closed out the first set in 26 minutes, courtesy of eight winners and 100 percent of his first serve points won. With his inexperienced opponent feeling the pressure of facing the five-time winner, Nadal continued to dominate a majority of the baseline rallies for the remainder of the contest.
Improving his lifetime record at the event to 41-1, Nadal will next face Ivan Ljubicic for a place in the quarterfinals. Ljubicic bounced No. 16 seed Fernando Verdasco from the tournament, 6-3, 7-6 (8), 6-4.
Nadal owns a 6-2 head-to-head series lead over Ljubicic, which includes three (straight set) clay wins over the Croatian.
Elsewhere, No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic improved to 40-0 in 2011 after he wrapped his two day affair against Juan Martin del Potro.
With the match called on Friday due to darkness, the hard-hitting pair returned to Court Suzanne Lenglen tied at one set all. While Djokovic appeared to find difficulty with del Potro’s weight of shot on Friday, the Serb began Saturday’s resumption of the match full of vigor. Breaking the Argentine to lead 5-3 in the third set, Djokovic gained a two-sets-to-one advantage before closing out the contest, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Striking 41 winners in total, Djokovic improved to 4-0 against del Potro in career matches and will next face hometown favorite Richard Gasquet on Sunday. Not losing a match since the World Tour Finale in London, Djokovic will take a 4-1 head-to-head series lead against the Frenchman.
In other seeded results on Day 7, No. 4 seed Andy Murray continued to take advantage of his easy draw by dismissing Michael Berrer 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.
Injuring his ankle during the fourth game of the second set, Murray required a lengthy medical timeout but quickly returned to his dominating form. Reaching the final 16 in Paris for the third straight year, a questionable Murray will next face No. 16 seed Viktor Troicki.
Troicki dismissed good friend Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
No. 5 seed and defending finalist Robin Soderling will take on Gilles Simon for a quarterfinal berth after he chalked up a 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Leonardo Mayer.
Simon was equally as impressive on the day, taking out No. 10 seed Mardy Fish 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
Alejandro Falla recorded his best Major finish to date at a Grand Slam by dismissing Lukasz Kubot 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-5, 6-4, and veteran Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela reached his first round-of-16 at a Major since the 2007 US Open, defeating Lukas Rosol 6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(5).
Sunday’s order of play in Paris will feature Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
[...] the other three of the four top-seeded players who’ve made it to this year’s semi-finals: Nadal, who’s aiming to tie Bjorn Borg’s record of six French Open titles, Djokovic, who broke the [...]