Tennis News

Rafael Nadal will continue his quest for a fifth title at the Mutua Madrid Open with a third round encounter against Italy’s Simone Bolelli, whom he has faced on three previous occasions on the professional tour. Nadal leads the head-to-head series 4-0 and will now look to extend that lead with his first win against Bolelli this season.

Four-time Madrid champion Rafael Nadal began his week on home soil in successful fashion, as he defeated America’s Steve Johnson in straight sets to advance to the third round of the Masters 1000 event. He hit 14 aces to win the match 6-4, 6-3 in just over an hour of court time.

“I went out there to do a simple game with no complications,” said Nadal. “I tried to play easily. I know how things work out when you come from losing a couple of matches. I know that you’re a little bit nervous whenever you finish a game, as I finished the other day with [Fabio] Fognini in Barcelona.

“I tried to start from the bottom and just go up. I think, especially the last three games, I finished pretty well. I managed to do a couple more things with my backhand.”

Simone Bolelli won an all-Italian second round contest against qualifier Luca Vanni to set up his meeting with Nadal. He won the match 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 in a contest where he won 83 percent of his first service points and converted three break points to close out the match in one hour and 41 minutes.

Nadal holds a 4-0 lead over Bolelli in the head-to-head series and is still a hefty favourite over the Italian. If all goes according to plan, the Spaniard should ease into the second round with relative ease, even though he has run into some unexpected difficulties on clay so far this season.

World No. 1 Serena Williams will encounter resurgent Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro to determine who will advance to the semi-final round of the Mutua Madrid Open. Williams is undefeated in their five previous encounters in the head-to-head series, including a clay court win last season at this very event. Check out the Williams vs Suarez Navarro Head to Head.

In one of the earlier matches on court this Wednesday, Serena Williams outlasted her longtime rival and former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka to secure her 14th h2h victory over the Belarusian. This was easily one of the more competitive encounters yet, which is a positive sign for Azarenka’s recovery. In the end, however, it was Williams who saved three match points to beat her foe 7-6, 3-6, 7-6(1) in two hours and 43 minutes.

When asked about the former US Open champion, she was quick to compliment Azarenka’s return to form.

“It’s so good to see a Grand Slam champion like her playing so well. I’m always rooting for her when she plays. Yeah, so it’s good to see her on her way back – she’s clearly doing great.”

Williams will now come up against Carla Suarez Navarro, whom she demolished several months ago at the Miami Open final. This time, the Spaniard reached the quarter-final stage with an impressive victory over Ana Ivanovic. She won the encounter 7-5, 1-6, 6-4 in two hours and four minutes of court time, during which, she won 68% of her first service points, saved eight break points and won seven of her won.

This marks the sixth time these two competitors will meet on the professional tour, with Williams leading the series with an impenetrable 5-0 record. While the Spaniard is playing some of the best tennis of her career, it is still difficult to envision her actually toppling the world No. 1 player, who is now on a remarkable 26-match win streak.

No sooner did Roger Federer claim his 85th career title on the tour than he suffers an unceremonious opening round exit as the top seed at the Mutua Madrid Masters event. The former four-time champion suffered a tight three-set loss to rising Aussie star Nick Kyrgios.

In what turned out to be an enthralling encounter on the tour, Kyrgios was able to save several match points to eventually snatch the deciding points in the third set tiebreak. He won the contest 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 7-6(12).

“Before the match I didn’t feel nervous or anything like that,” said Kyrgios. “I was just excited to get out to the court. I’ve been playing well recently on the clay, so I knew I had a good chance to go out there and do well. I stuck to my game and served well and I got the win.”

Although Federer was far from his worst, he admitted that he was simply unable to return Nick’s monster first serves.

“My problem was I couldn’t return his first serve,” said Federer, who won 18 of 85 first serve return points. “[It] was just a horrible performance on the return.

“As the match went on it got so bad that I just couldn’t get into decent positions on the return, so it made it very difficult to get any sort of rhythm after that.

“But credit to him for serving well and keep doing what he was doing. But I’m very disappointed by that. That’s what cost me the match, in my opinion.”

Federer now holds a 21-4 record on the tour this year, with three titles to his name, including one last week in Istanbul.

The enthralling match-ups continue to take shape at the loaded Madrid Open this year, as the first quarter-final match-up has officially been set. Maria Sharapova will meet longtime rival Caroline Wozniacki in an intriguing contest with interesting repercussions. Sharapova leads the head-to-head series 5-4 but lost their last two consecutive meetings, including at the US Open last season.

For the first time in their head-to-head series, Maria Sharapova as faced with a grueling battle against Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia. While usually able to win the match in straight sets, Sharapova needed three sets to secure the victory and advance to the quarter-final. After over two-and-a-half hours of court time, the Russian finally exited the court with 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 victory over Garcia.

“I’ve played against her a few times and she’s been young and up and coming for a few years,” Sharapova said. “She’s already done a great job of getting in a good position. She’s winning titles and beating top players.

“I think that the most important thing is maintaining that level and keeping that consistency. You know, I’ve seen many of her matches and she can come up with some great stuff. She’s been able to do that against really good players.”

In a much simpler match-up later on in the day, Caroline Wozniacki ousted Polish No. 1 Agnieszka Radwanska in straight sets to advance to the following round of the Madrid Open. She struck three aces, won 75% of her service points and won six break points to win the match 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and 22 minutes.

This marks the ninth time that the two competitors will meet on the professional tour, with Sharapova leading the head-to-head series 5-4. Sharapova held three consecutive wins over Wozniacki until she was ousted at this year’s US Open tournament. That was later followed up with another Wozniacki victory at the WTA Championship in Singapore. However, while the hard court encounters are split at 3-3, SHarapova is still yet to suffer a clay court defeat to the Dane.