Rafael Nadal suffered his
first clay-court defeat in almost a year when the world number one was shocked
7-5, 6-3 by Austria’s Dominic Thiem in the Madrid Masters quarter-finals on
Friday.
Defending
champion Nadal, who came into the tournament having won both Monte Carlo and
Barcelona for an 11th time, also saw his record 50-set winning streak on clay
ended by the fifth-seeded Thiem.
Thiem,
the runner-up to the great Spaniard in the 2017 Madrid final, had been the last
player to defeat Nadal on clay at the Italian Open in Rome almost 12 months
ago.
The
shock result on Friday also means that Roger Federer will reclaim the world
number one ranking on Monday.
“I
wasn’t good enough with my forehand or my backhand to open to his forehand
today,” admitted Nadal.
Five-time
Madrid winner Nadal, who will be bidding for an 11th French Open title in Paris
later this month, had won his previous 21 matches on clay.
That
run included him surpassing John McEnroe’s 1984 record of 49 sets won in
succession on the same surface during his last-16 duel with Diego Schwartzman
on Thursday.
However,
in their ninth career clash, Thiem put Nadal under pressure almost from the
start on Friday and broke for a 4-3 lead in the first set.
A
double fault and a long forehand allowed Nadal to retrieve the break at 5-5.
It
was a brief reprieve as a lazy forehand volley gave Thiem a 6-5 advantage and
the set came the Austrian’s way in the 12th game off an ace.
Thiem,
watched by his girlfriend — and WTA star — Kristina Mladenovic, turned the
screw for a 3-1 lead in the second set but Nadal battled back to 3-3.
That
was as good as it got for the Spaniard as Thiem broke again for 4-3, held to
love for 5-3 and secured victory with another blistering forehand.
Thiem,
who next faces South Africa’s Kevin Anderson for a place in Sunday’s final,
joins Novak Djokovic and Gaston Gaudio as just the third man to have beaten
Nadal three times on clay.
World
number eight Anderson battled into his first Masters semi-final with a 7-6
(7/3), 3-6, 6-3 win over Serbian qualifier Dusan Lajovic.
Anderson,
the 31-year-old US Open runner-up last year, hit 15 aces and 35 winners.
Dutchwoman
Kiki Bertens continued her remarkable run at the Madrid Open by thrashing
French seventh seed Caroline Garcia to reach the womens’ final.
The
world number 20 will face either Petra Kvitova or Karolina Pliskova in the
biggest match of her career on Saturday, after brushing aside Garcia 6-2, 6-2.
Bertens,
who had already stunned world number two Caroline Wozniacki and five-time Grand
Slam champion Maria Sharapova earlier in the week, started brightly and broke
twice en route to the opening set.
Garcia
struggled throughout and never even mustered a break-point opportunity, falling
in the semi-finals for the second straight tournament after losing to CoCo
Vandeweghe in Stuttgart.
Bertens,
whose five previous WTA titles have all come on clay, was rock-solid in the
second set as she wrapped up the win in only an hour and seven minutes.
Two-time
Wimbledon champion Kvitova takes on her fellow Czech Pliskova in the second
last-four clash.
AFP
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