Should Nadal advance, he seems nearly destined to meet defending Olympic champion Andy Murray in the finals with previous favorite and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic stunningly eliminated in the first round.
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Murray, who is now the title favorite after Novak Djokovic was stunned in the first round, booked a spot in the final four with a hard-earned win over Steve Johnson of United States in the quarterfinals on Friday. His conqueror Juan Martin del Potro!
Nadal, the 2008 singles champion, goes on to face either Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina or Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut for a place in Sunday’s gold medal match.
The set ended 6-4 for Nadal and Lopez who got the gold medal.
Nadal already has an Olympic gold after winning men’s doubles gold with Marc Lopez.
She will face second seed and Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber who beat Britain s Johanna Konta 6-1, 6-2.
“I can not believe the moment, the crowd makes me cry in every match”, Del Potro said.
It is the first half of what would be a quite remarkable double of wins for Nadal, who now sets his sight on singles glory where he will bid to beat Andy Murray to the title. Not bad for a guy who missed the London Games four years ago because of a knee injury, then came to Brazil with a wrist he says is not fully healed. It’s time to enjoy it.
Nadal struck 20 winners against 25 unforced errors in the two-hour and one-minute contest to improve to 6-0 against Bellucci.
And don’t forget, there’s a bronze match as well on Sunday, so Rafa still has two more matches!
In the third, Nadal quickly zoomed past his opponent for a 4-1 lead. A wrist injury that had forced him earlier this year to withdraw mid-tournament from his beloved Roland Garros had cast doubts on his tennis future, but Rio has given his career new life. He broke for 2-1 before the third seed levelled at 2-2.
When their guy would grab a game, they would sing, soccer-style, “Ole, ole, ole, ole!”
Giving the crowd some credit for Bellucci’s win takes away from his accomplishment, but it was awesome how stark the difference in noise was for Bellucci compared to Nadal.
This was the first singles match during these games in which Nadal was tested early, even more than during the tiebreak he won over Gilles Simon on Thursday, but he responded as he has so often during the Olympics.
They beat Romania’s Florin Mergea and Horia Tecau 6-2 3-6 6-4.
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Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig triumphed 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 over the Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova to reach the women’s singles final.
