Monaco: Eight-time champion Rafael Nadal had little trouble
reaching the quarterfinals of the Monte Carlo Masters, beating Italian Andreas
Seppi 6-1, 6-3 on Thursday.Having looked a little rusty in the second round on
Wednesday, where he trailed 3-1 against Teymuraz Gabashvili, the Spaniard was
more clinical this time and raced into a 4-0 lead.
The top-seeded Nadal was only briefly troubled in the
second set when Seppi broke him to love to pull back to 4-3 down. But Seppi
could not hold and Nadal completed the victory with an ace on his first match
point.He next faces sixth-seeded David Ferrer or No. 12 Grigor Dimitrov.Nadal
won the tournament eight times in succession before losing last year's final to
Novak Djokovic.He was a little sloppy in the sixth game of the first set and
had to save five break points, but dominated most of the match from the back of
the court and sometimes used his drop shot to good effect to move the taller
Seppi around.
Third-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland,
eighth-seeded Milos Raonic of Canada and No. 9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France
also advanced to the last eight.Having taken only 46 minutes to win his
second-round match, Wawrinka didn't even need to lift a racket after Spaniard
Nicolas Almagro pulled out because of pain in his left foot.
"After consulting with the doctor for a long time
this morning, we decided together that it was better for me not to play,"
the 15th-seeded Almagro said. "I deeply regret this because I was
expecting a lot from this tournament."
Wawrinka next faces the big-serving Raonic, who beat No.
11 Tommy Robredo of Spain 6-3, 6-4.
Tsonga won 5-7, 6-3, 6-0 against 10th-seeded Fabio Fognini
of Italy and next plays the winner of Thursday's later match between No. 4
Roger Federer and Lukas Rosol.
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