Hamburg: Spanish tennis top seed Rafael Nadal has booked a spot in the semi-finals of the bet-at-home Open here with a comfortable 6-3, 6-2 victory over Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas.
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The 14-time Grand Slam champion, who has struggled this season on all surfaces and seen his ranking slip to its lowest point since April 2005, opted to play this clay-court event to boost his confidence ahead of the start of the North American hard-court season, which will culminate with the U.S. Open, to be played from August. 31 to September 13.
Victory means Nadal will now feature in his 96th career final and his third in Hamburg, where he won the title the last time he competed in the tournament back in 2008.
Nadal is looking to extend his streak of having won at least one European clay court title every year since 2004.
“I will try to keep playing well and enjoy today’s victory”, Nadal said.
“From the beginning I played great, since the first game that I hit a few winners”. In general, it was a very positive match. And this year with the up and downs that I’ve had, obviously every improvement is important.
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In other quarter-final results, another Italian, Fabio Fognini, defeated Britain’s Aljaz Bedene 6-4, 7-5, and French qualifier Lucas Pouille routed countryman and second seed Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-2.
