Nadal battles past Pella; Djokovic dumped
monaco — Rafael Nadal had to battle to reach the semifinals of the Monte Carlo Masters for the 14th time on Friday as he beat Guido Pella of Argentina 7-6 (7/1), 6-3.
A marathon opening set with eight breaks of serve took one hour, 20 minutes before Nadal won it in a tiebreaker.
He served for victory leading 5-2 in the second set only to drop serve again, but recovered to take the win as Pella double-faulted.
Earlier, an erratic Novak Djokovic suffered a surprise 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 defeat against Daniil Medvedev.
The 10th-seeded Russian was appearing in the last eight of a Masters tournament for the first time but was not overawed. In fact, it was Djokovic who made the most mistakes. The two-time champion looked out of sorts in windy conditions and produced 47 unforced errors.
After failing to serve out the match, when his Serbian opponent broke back to 5-2 down, Medvedev broke for the fifth time to seal a memorable victory.
Djokovic double-faulted at 30-30 to give Medvedev his first match point and a backhand winner secured a first win against his top-ranked rival at the fourth attempt, and a first victory against a No. 1.
He next faces the unseeded Dusan Lajovic, who also reached a Masters semi for the first time when he beat Italian qualifier Lorenzo Sonego 6-4, 7-5. Lajovic has not dropped a set at the clay-court event and is more surprised than anybody. “I didn’t expect this. I was sick before the tournament and taking antibiotics,” the 28-year-old Serb said. “But it’s the best week of my career.”
The same goes for the 23-year-old Medvedev. He had lost the three previous matches against Djokovic, including a tough four-setter in the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open. —