Rafael Nadal beat Britain’s Cameron Norrie 6-4 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals of the Swedish Open in Bastad.
Nadal is having an amazing week in Sweden where he is also in the semi-finals of the men’s doubles with Casper Ruud.
The 22-time Grand Slam champion is preparing for the Olympics in Paris, where tennis will be held at Roland Garros, the venue where Nadal has won 14 French open titles.
“Great feelings. It’s been a while, without playing on the tour since Roland Garros, and the chance to play a great player like Cameron,” said Nadal who will play Argentina’s Mariano Navone in the quarter-finals on Friday at 12pm, live on Sky Sports Tennis.
“I played some good tennis in moments, in other moments I need to play a bit more aggressive but it’s part of the journey.
“I haven’t been competing very often, so matches like today help to be on rhythm the whole match and holding the pressure on the opponent for the whole match is something I need to improve on.
“I just need to play a bit more aggressive with the backhand, which I think at the end of the match made the difference. With the forehand I am quite happy, and the serve too.”
How Nadal won the match
The opening six games of the match went to serve, with both players striking through the ball solidly.
However, Nadal capitalised on two unforced forehand errors from Norrie to get the first break and went 4-3 up in the first set. Norrie failed to take two chances to break back at 5-4, so Nadal served out the first set.
The Spaniard fell early in the second set when running to get a backhand and required treatment on his left arm as Norrie broke and went on to take a 4-1 lead.
But, Nadal won five games in a row with a superb performance to make the quarter-finals of a tournament for the first time since January.
“At the beginning of the match, he was a bit better than me because he was winning his serves quite easily and on mine I was suffering more but I made the break,” said Nadal.
“In the second, I felt I was playing better but then I played a bad game, and he played a good one, so he broke me. and I said to myself ‘it could be 4-1’ to me too.”
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