A WEARY RAFAEL Nadal and an off-target Roger Federer were knocked out of the quarter-finals of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati on Friday evening.
Playing a day after he spent five hours on court, Nadal faded badly in a 6-3 6-4 loss to American Mardy Fish, who had never beaten the second-ranked Spaniard before now.
Later in the day, third seed Federer struggled with his groundstrokes during a 6-2 7-6 loss to Tomas Berdych and while he did not have everything his own way, world number one Novak Djokovic survived a match of long rallies and electrifying shots to beat Gael Monfils 3-6 6-4 6-3.
In the wide-open women’s events, second seed Vera Zvonareva, world number four Maria Sharapova and top ten player Andrea Petkovic advanced in straight sets. Jelena Jankovic, meanwhile, moved into the semi-finals when Peng Shuai withdrew with a sore left hip.
Nadal needed three tiebreakers and nearly four hours to beat compatriot Fernando Verdasco on Thursday, a battle followed by a 70-minute doubles match. He ended the day with blisters on his left foot and played with his fingers heavily bandaged having burned fingers on a hot plate before the tournament began.
“I didn’t play well here, especially,” the Spaniard admitted. “A little bit unlucky week for me with the burned fingers and the very long match on Thursday.”
Federer, for his part, never had a chance to break Berdych’s serve. The Swiss star had an uncharacteristic 29 unforced errors and hit three forehands wide during the tiebreaker.
“I definitely didn’t feel I was getting a great read on his first serve,” Federer said. “He served well and played a good match. Unfortunately, I didn’t play a very good tiebreaker either.”
Briton Andy Murray is also in good form – beating Gilles Simon with little difficulty (6-3 6-3) to set up with Fish. “I have to play my game against him and it works very well,” he said. “You have to wait for the right moments – I need to keep improving a few per cent every day.”
