Nadal rises from the ashes
Miami, March 27: Rafael Nadal came back from an awful first set to defeat Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber 0-6, 6-2, 6-3 and advance to the fourth round of the Miami Open on Sunday.
The Spaniard, playing his 1,000th ATP match, suffered just the 14th 0-6 set of his career, claiming just 33 per cent of first serve points won and making a string of unforced errors.
After looking badly out of sorts, Nadal was able to rediscover his form in the second set and in the end ran out a comfortable winner.
Nadal said that there was little he could do against Kohlschreiber’s outstanding play in the opening set.
“He was doing everything good. So that’s sport, as I said hundred of times and when somebody is playing the way that he was playing the first set ... he was playing too good. That’s it,” said Nadal.
Nadal next faces France’s Nicolas Mahut who beat Argentine Guido Pella 6-4, 6-3. Nishikori pulls past Verdasco Japan’s Kei Nishikori came through a tough test against Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 7-6 (7/2), 6-7(5/7) 6-1.
Last year’s beaten finalist, Nishikori will face Argentine Federico Del Bonis, who beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 7-6 (7/5), 6-1.
Injury-plagued world number five Milos Raonic pulled out of the tournament shortly before his match against American Jared Donaldson, citing a recurrence of a hamstring injury.
Canada’s Raonic originally suffered the injury in the semi-final at Delray Beach and was forced to forfeit the final against American Jack Sock. He then missed this month’s Masters event at Indian Wells. Kerber rallies to down Rogers World no.1 Angelique Kerber came back from a break down in both sets to beat American Shelby Rogers 6-4, 7-5 on Sunday and move into the fourth round at the Miami Open.
With no sign of the rain that interrupted the past two days on Key Biscayne, Kerber was joined in the round of 16 by Britain’s Johanna Konta, American Venus Williams and Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova all who had comfortable wins.
Although ranked 61st in the world, Rogers has beaten Karolina Pliskova, Petra Kvitova, Simona Halep and Daria Kasatkina in the last year and had her eye on beating the top seed.
Kerber now meets Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki who beat German Julia Georges 7-6 (7/5), 6-3.
Williams had no such difficulties in beating Romania’s Patricia Maria Tig, 6-3, 6-0 to set up a tough challenge against Russia’s Kuznetsova.
Tenth seed Konta beat 57th ranked Pauline Parmentier of France, 64, 6-0 looking in better form than she had in labouring to a three-set win over Belarussian Aliaksandra Sasnovichher in two-hours and 40 minutes.
The contest turned in Konta’s direction when she converted her third break point to take a 4-3 lead in the first set and the Australian-born Briton lost just five points in the second set.