April 30, 2009

Rafa Nadal beat Robin Soderling of Sweden 6-1 6-0 to advance to the quarter-finals of the Rome Masters.

The Spanish top seed will now play his compatriot Fernando Verdasco in the last eight after the number six seed saw off Richard Gasquet of France 7-5 6-4.

In the late match on Stadio Pietrangeli, the one-sided scoreline reflected Rafa's performance but failed to give credit to Soderling's showing.

The Swede played some excellent tennis at times, especially during the first set, but Rafa was simply that much better in every respect.

Soderling started brightly, taking the first game of the match with a combination of crisp ground strokes and powerful serves but it proved to be his only return of the night.

From then on, despite a brave fight, Soderling failed to win another game, and Nadal powered to 12 straight games to take the match and send out a message to the seven remaining players in the tournament.

Vamos Rafa!