Shanghai, September 15, 2009

World No. 2, and top seed at the Shanghai Masters Series Tournament, Rafa Nadal took no time to beat fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo 6-1 6-4 this evening and has set up a clash with Ivan Ljubicic in the quarterfinals on Friday.

The world number two took just an hour and a half to beat Robredo, taking his head-to-head record against his compatriot to 5-0, without the loss of a single set.

Rafa romped through the first set but went 2-0 down in the second before quickly breaking back, then levelling at 4-4.He broke Robredo to love in the ninth game and then went 40-0 up on his own serve before his 14th-seeded opponent saved a match-point.

Rafa then faulted with his next serve, but his wickedly-spinning second attempt forced Robredo to hit his return high and wide.

"I am playing well, but we will see tomorrow," said Rafa after the match. "When you come back after injury, you can't think more than the next day. I think when you are playing more matches, you win more matches, you have more confidence."

The Australian Open champ didn't seem to be pleased with his game today, "I need more weeks, I think. I need to play very well all the time, not like today. For example, in my opinion, the beginning of the second set was very important, because I was playing really well, 6-1, having the control of the match, playing aggressive," admitted Rafa. "Tommy didn't have lot of chances.  So [I] played two bad games in the beginning of the second and the set was difficult."

HEAD-T0-HEAD AGAINST LJUBICIC

Ljubicic has one career victory over Rafa but that result came in 2005. Since that loss Rafa has claimed 4 consecutive victories over the Croat, two on clay, two on hard court.

Vamos Rafa!

Youtube Video: Rtve.es | meriko100