Nadal Overcomes Cilic Challenge To Reach US Open Quarter-finals

There are days when Rafael Nadal is like a tidal wave on the tennis court, drowning opponents with relentless pressure on both offence and defence. And then there are days when the Spaniard needs to dig deep and raise his level even higher, relying on his trademark grit to get through. Monday evening’s fourth-round match inside Arthur Ashe Stadium was an example of the latter.

But the good thing for the three-time US Open champion is that it resulted in a win, as Nadal battled past 2014 titlist Marin Cilic 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals in New York for the ninth time.

Nadal, with Novak Djokovic’s retirement Sunday evening during his own fourth-round match, will add to his lead in the ATP Race To London with every victory at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, as he continues to pursue his fifth year-end World No. 1 finish.

The 33-year-old has made at least the quarter-finals at nine consecutive Grand Slams, and at three consecutive trips to the US Open. Nadal will next face Argentine Diego Schwartzman, against whom he was won all seven of his FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings.

Nadal was not quite as dominant as he was in making it to the fourth round without dropping a set, though. And much of the credit for that goes to Cilic for playing a tremendous second set.

After the lefty came out of the gate firing on all cylinders by breaking for a 3-1 lead in the opening set, Cilic earned the break right back. Nadal did break in the very next game, with that advantage proving decisive, but the No. 22 seed showed that he was not going to let the Nadal train roll over him.

Cilic broke for 3-1 in the second set with good defence on the forehand side, putting the 83-time tour-level titlist in an awkward position to force an error. From there, five years on from his title run here in New York, Cilic gave the crowd flashbacks by firing away at both forehands and backhands to try to break down Nadal’s walls.

But those walls proved plenty tall enough. Nadal won 12 of the final 15 games to triumph after two hours and 49 minutes. In his 61st US Open win, Nadal crushed 38 winners to only 26 unforced errors.

Nadal maintained his usual return position deep in the court, and he made Cilic play ball after ball. Although the Croat connected on 33 winners — and by no means played a poor match — Cilic was unable to maintain enough consistency in his aggression to force the second seed to make any major changes to his tactics during the match.

Did You Know?
Nadal entered his match against Cilic as the only player remaining who had not been broken, facing only three break points to reach the fourth round. But even though he was broken twice by Cilic, Nadal has still won 95 per cent of his service games this tournament.

from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/2HFbFkx