Rafael Nadal Battles Past James Blake
15 October 2009
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Rafael Nadal battled past James Black for the second time in as many weeks to progress to the third round of the Shanghai masters.
The pair met the previous week at the China Open in one of the best matches of the tournament and they once again produced a great head to head.
Nadal, along with several top player, had complained about the length of the season but he showed no signs of fatigue as he dominated the opening set with some impressive play to take the opener 6-2.
But it was deja-vu for the top seed as he failed to put the match away in the second allowing the big hitting American to fight back to take it to a tie break, a tie break he went onto win.
But Nadal broke early in the third and final set but was unable to capitalise on his advantage as Blake broke back to level the match at 4-4.
But that was to be Blake's last game as Nadal broke again before serving out the match to win 6-2 6-7 (4-7) 6-4.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the match the Spaniard said: "It's been a difficult year for me, so every victory is really important for me."
"I thought I deserved to win the match because most of the time I think I played better than James.
"If I continue like this, with this motivation, I'm going to come back to playing my best tennis."
He will now face compatriot Tommy Robredo in the third round after he saw off Florian Mayer 4-6 7-6 (10-8) 6-4.
But the criticism of the length of the tour rumbled on yesterday as Juan martin Del Potro, seeded three, was forced to retire from his match against Jurgen Melzer 7-5 2-1 down due to a wrist injury.
This came just twenty four hours after Roddick pulled out of his match due to injury. Murray is missing from the tournament due to tendonitis in his wrist and Federer is also absent citing exhaustion.
And Tommy Haas was also forced to call it a day in his match against Rainer Schuettler. And Shuttler will now face second seed Novak Djokovic who faced a straight forward win over Fabio Fognini 6-3 6-1.
Gilles Simon also progressed with a straight sets win over 6-3 6-4 but Gael Monfils had to battle back from a set down against plucky Aussie Lleyton Hewitt who really took his game to the Frenchman.
However it wasn't good news for Fernando Verdasco as he was send packing in straight sets by Ivan Ljubicic.
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