Rafael Nadal drew on his battling qualities on Thursday at the Mutua Madrid Open to keep alive his chances of winning a 29th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title.

The fifth seed and four-time former titlist produced a stunning comeback in the first set against Sam Querrey for a 6-4, 6-2 victory and a place in the quarter-finals, where he will face Joao Sousa.

Nadal came within one point of trailing 1-5, when he served at 30/40 in the sixth game. Querrey later served at 4-3, 40/15, but could not stop Nadal’s resurgence in the 39-minute first set. Nadal grew in confidence and won his seventh game in a row for a 2-0 lead in the second set. Although Querrey recovered to 2-2, Nadal moved up a gear to extinguish any further threats in the 70-minute encounter. It was his 12th straight match win.

“I hadn’t trained during the nighttime, it was a completely different feeling,” Nadal said. “Today it was a little bit slower. At the beginning, when we were warming up, I was feeling a little bit strange, but actually during the week I’ve been training well and playing well.

“After [the slow start] I just had to come back and turn the match around. Luckily once I did that, the match went well. It was on my side most of the time.

“He was going to serve for 5-3 with new balls. You know that you’re at the limit and you can lose the set. Not the match, because you still have another set to go, but it is tough [to be in that position]. In that moment I decided to step back a little bit and change my game. I tried to close the gap so that he couldn’t just go for it. I think it worked out.”

Nadal, who is now 41-9 at the tournament, lifted the trophy in 2005 (d. Ljubicic), 2010 (d. Federer), 2013 (d. Wawrinka) and 2014 (d. Nishikori).

He has recently won back-to-back ATP World Tour titles at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters (d. Monfils) and the Barcelona Open BancSabadell (d. Nishikori) to tie Guillermo Vilas’ record of 49 clay-court titles.

Querrey, 28, captured his first ATP World Tour crown since 2012 at Delray Beach (d. Ram) in February. He dropped to 16-8 overall on the season.

Sousa is through to his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final after beating Querrey’s compatriot, Jack Sock, 6-1, 6-7(3), 6-2 in two hours and 14 minutes.

First Tennis Memory: My father owned a small tennis club in Minnesota. All my early tennis memories are playing at the club, hanging around and causing trouble [smiles].

Tennis Inspirations: Learning from my dad. Learning to fall in love with it. How much passion he had for it. He never pushed me, never said I had to play. But just seeing his love for it and all the smiles he put on people’s faces. That’s what I think made me like [tennis] so much.

Greatest Sports Moment: Finals of Australian Open. Grand Slam finals don’t come around often. When you get to play one of those, it’s pretty special.

Most Painful Moment: Losing in NCAA semi-finals. And I was the last match on the court and I let my team down and we lost 4-3. So that was pretty bad.

Strangest Match: Once in Indian Wells, Rafa hit Feliciano Lopez in the back of the head with a serve, 130 miles an hour, off his head and it went out of the stadium.

Embarrassing Tennis Memory: One was when I was watching at one of my first-ever ATP events. I was looking for a seat. Some people invited me to sit in their luxury box, and I didn’t know who it was. I sat the whole match sitting with Federer’s parents… Basel – his hometown. That was horrible. I didn’t know till the very end [smiles].

Favorite Tournaments: Stockholm and Queens. I like some of the old tennis clubs. You see some of the history, the traditions of the sport. A lot of times we play in real modern venues. It’s nice to see some of the old courts and look up at the posters of Borg and McEnroe and Lendl. Some of these tournaments have been held for 100 years. It’s neat to see.

First Famous Player You Met Or Encountered: No memory from when I was young. Probably first year on the ATP World Tour, Agassi was finishing up his career. So getting to meet him just before he finished his career was really cool… at Indianapolis.

Favorite Sport Outside Tennis: Basketball.

Three Athletes You Like To Watch & Follow: Hockey – Henrik Lundqvist, goalie for the New York Rangers. Growing up I liked Chris Mullin [NBA shooting guard]… I like how he handles himself off the field, leadership-wise. Russell Wilson [NFL].

Best You Ever Felt On Court: Australian Open is one of my best tournaments. Down there I always feel great. The one year we beat the Bryans. Then the following round we beat Nestor/Zimonjic 2 and 4 on Laver Arena. To beat the top two teams in the world back-to-back, pretty handily, was probably the best I ever felt.

Funniest Players Encountered: It’s pretty serious these days. Everybody is pretty focused. Surprisingly, a lot of people never see the side of him but behind closed doors in the locker room Federer is more of a jokester than anyone would imagine.

Fiercest Competitors Encountered: Bryan Brothers. Every time – nice guys off the court – and on the court they want to rip your head off every time [smiles].

Courtesy of Scoop Malinowski, tennis-prose.com. Scoop is the author of “Facing Federer” , “Facing Hewitt” and “Facing Nadal”, all available on Amazon.

Novak Djokovic recorded his 30th match win of the season on Thursday to reach the Mutua Madrid Open quarter-finals.

Djokovic was in devastating form against Roberto Bautista Agut, the No. 15 seed, in a 6-2, 6-1 victory over 68 minutes. It was Djokovic’s fourth straight win over the 2014 semi-finalist.

The World No. 1 is attempting to capture his 29th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament and the fifth trophy of 2016. He is now 30-2 on the year.

Djokovic will next play seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or No. 11 seed Milos Raonic.

Nick Kyrgios, in the same quarter of the draw as Djokovic, will take on 2014 runner-up and sixth seed Kei Nishikori after he knocked out Pablo Cuevas 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3.

Kyrgios, who hit 14 aces and saved five of seven break points, will contest his second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final. He lost to Nishikori in the Miami semi-finals last month.

Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal, who have combined to win 12 of the last 13 ATP Masters 1000 titles, headline the Mutua Madrid Open third round Thursday. All three former Madrid champions are scheduled to play on Manolo Santana, with Murray meeting No. 16 seed Gilles Simon in the first match at 12 pm. Murray is 3-0 against Simon in Madrid with two wins on clay and another in the 2008 final, which marked the last hard-court match at the event.

In the following men’s match, World No. 1 Djokovic looks to break his tie with Dominic Thiem for the most wins on tour this season. The Serb is 29-2 entering his encounter with No. 15 seed Roberto Bautista Agut, who is also in the Top 5 with 22 victories in 2016. Men’s play concludes on Manolo Santana when Nadal meets Sam Querrey. Nadal has won 11 straight matches overall and 15 in a row against Americans. The four-time champion is undefeated against active American players (19-0) and Americans on clay (12-0), though Querrey won a set in all three of their matches.

MOST WINS ON ATP WORLD TOUR IN 2016

1T         Novak Djokovic                        29        

1T         Dominic Thiem                          29

3          Kei Nishikori                            24

4          Rafael Nadal                             23

5T         Roberto Bautista Agut              22

5T         Milos Raonic                            22

Bold: Playing in Madrid third round on Thursday

A pair of matches between Top 10 players highlights the schedule on Arantxa Sanchez. Eighth-ranked Tomas Berdych has lost seven of his last eight matches against others in the Top 10. His opponent, ninth-ranked David Ferrer, has lost seven straight. In the other Top-10 match-up, World No. 7 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga meets Milos Raonic, who replaced Richard Gasquet at No. 10 in this week’s Emirates ATP Rankings. Now No. 12, Gasquet takes a surprising 6-0 FedEx ATP Head 2 Head record into his match against sixth-ranked Kei Nishikori on Estadio 3.

Seven of the Top 8 doubles seeds are also in action on Wednesday, led by Indian Wells, Miami and Monte-Carlo champions Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut. The Frenchmen are bidding to become the first doubles team or singles player to sweep the first four ATP Masters 1000 titles. Mahut is also one of four men who could be the doubles World No. 1 on May 9 along with current No. 1 Jamie Murray, No. 2 Marcelo Melo and No. 5 Horia Tecau.