Nadal Up & Running In Monte-Carlo
Nadal Up & Running In Monte-Carlo
11-time champion now 69-4 at Monte-Carlo Country Club
In his first match since the BNP Paribas Open, Rafael Nadal began his bid for a 12th Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters crown in style on Wednesday.
The 11-time champion raced past countryman Roberto Bautista Agut 6-1, 6-1 to notch his 69th victory in 73 matches at the opening ATP Masters 1000 event of the European clay swing. Nadal saved each of the five break points he faced to advance after 76 minutes.
The World No. 2 extends his winning streak to 16 matches in the Principality. The last man to defeat Nadal at this event was Novak Djokovic in the 2015 semi-finals. The second seed also improves to 3-0 in his FedEx ATP Head2Head series against the Spanish No. 2, winning each of those three encounters in straight sets.
Nadal will play Jan-Lennard Struff or Grigor Dimitrov in the third round. The 80-time tour-level titlist leads Dimitrov 11-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, which includes wins for Nadal at this event in the 2013 quarter-finals and last year’s semi-finals. Nadal is yet to meet Struff at tour-level.
Any suspicion that Nadal may take some time to recapture his best level were quickly erased on Court Rainier III, as the Spaniard dominated the centre of the court. Nadal regularly moved Bautista Agut out of position, opening the court with powerful forehand combinations to take the opening set after 32 minutes.
The Australian Open finalist rode the momentum into the second set, firing a signature forehand up the line en route to his third break of serve. After recovering from 0/40 down at 2-1, Nadal charged into the net to secure a 4-1 advantage. The defending champion moved up the court behind his forehand on his first match point, booking his place in the last 16 with a forehand volley.
Bautista Agut entered the match with a 3-1 record against Top 10 opponents this year, which includes two victories over World No. 1 Djokovic. The Spaniard opened his season by capturing his ninth ATP Tour title at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open (d. Berdych), before breaking through to his first Grand Slam quarter-final at the Australian Open (l. to Tsitsipas).
The 32-year-old Nadal will be aiming to add to his Open Era record 57 clay-court titles this week. The Manacor native also owns a record 92.0 per cent success rate on clay (416-36) according to the FedEx ATP Performance Zone.