World No 1 Nadal earns a hard-fought7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win against Bulgarian teenager Dimitrov
World No 1 Nadal earns a hard-fought7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win against Bulgarian teenager Dimitrov
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Rafael Nadal defeated World No 490 Grigor Dimitrov 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 yesterday to reach the Rotterdam Open quarter-finals, but the Bulgarian teenager demonstrated his exciting potential as a future star.
World No 1 Nadal had plenty of problems with the 17-year-old junior Wimbledon and US Open winner who broke the newly-crowned Australian Open champion in the eighth game of the second set on his way to levelling the match.
But Nadal, who has struggled all week on the ultra-fast court here, quickly recovered his poise to reach the last eight although Dimitrov twice had chances in the final set to grab a break before running out of steam.
"He is heading to the top 10, for sure," said the Spaniard, who broke on seven of 12 chances in the tight second round contest.
"It was a really tough match and I had to work to win it."
Nadal, who now faces French seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for a semi-final spot, said Dimitrov reminded him of his own early days on the tour.
"I remember when I was 17 and beat (Roger) Federer in Miami. The motivation is great and you have nothing to lose. It was the same for me then."
Andy Murray overcame a raft of errors in a hit-or-miss opening set before posting a gruelling 7-6 (7/4), 7-5 win over Italy's Andreas Seppi.
The second seeded Scot struggled to impose himself in the first set which dragged on for nearly an hour with the World No 4 needing seven set points, spread over four games, to finally take the lead. Things improved slightly in the second set with Murray and 36th-ranked Seppi trading breaks in the fourth and fifth games.
Murray benefitted from a Seppi double-fault to take a 6-5 lead and finally got off court on his second match point and after an hour and three-quarters.
"There were a lot of errors from both sides in the first set," said Murray, who lost in the first round here a year ago.
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