Easy for Rafa, Roger
RAFAEL Nadal and Roger Federer resumed their battle for the year-end No 1 with imperious victories to reach the third round of the Shanghai Masters yesterday.
Top seed Nadal extended his winning streak to 13 matches with a 6-2, 6-1 demolition of American Jared Donaldson before world No 2 Federer, to the delight of his sizeable Chinese fan club, got the better of Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman 7-6(4), 6-4.
Nadal, who leads Federer by 2 370 points going into the home straight of a season in which the two old rivals have shared out the game’s biggest prizes, was unstoppable against Donaldson and needed only 54 minutes to prevail.
He last finished the year as world No 1 in 2013.
Federer shows no sign of giving up the chase, but had to battle hard against Schwartzman, letting slip a break in the first set to get dragged into a tiebreak.
The 36-year-old Swiss always had an extra shot in his locker, though, and having taken the opener, broke serve straight away in the second set to move towards victory.
He finished the contest with his 14th ace, setting up a third round clash against Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov.
Spaniard Nadal, who like Federer has won the Shanghai title once, faces Italy’s Fabio Fognini next.
Eighth seed David Goffin’s hopes of qualifying for the ATP World Tour Finals suffered a blow when he lost 7-6(4), 6-3 to Gilles Simon, while sixth seed Grigor Dimitrov had to save match-points on the way to beating Ryan Harrison 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(6). Seventh seed Pablo Carreno Busta also went out, losing 7-5, 7-5 to fellow Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Meanwhile, Japanese teenager Naomi Osaka fought back from an early break to stun Venus Williams in straight sets and move into the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open yesterday.
Osaka, 19, won 7-5, 6-2 for her best career win.
Williams has already qualified for the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore.
Others who have booked spots in the October 22-29 event are Garbine Muguruza, Simona Halep, Karolina Pliskova, Elina Svitolina, Caroline Wozniacki and Jelena Ostapenko. Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova powered past American Jacqueline Cako 7-6(3), 6-1 to set up a clash with Osaka, while seventh seed Daria Gavrilova of Australia rallied to beat Shelby Rogers of the US 6-1, 2-6, 6-2.
Meanwhile, China’s Zhu Lin staved off a mid-match fightback to upset Petra Kvitova for her maiden top 20 victory in the first round of the Tianjin Open.
The unseeded Zhu won 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 in her first meeting against the two-time Wimbledon champion.
“I played so relaxed today,” Zhu said after the match. – Reuters