By Chris Oddo | Friday October 16, 2015
Rafael Nadal eased past Stan Wawrinka, reeling off nine consecutive games at one point to triumph, 6-2, 6-1 in Shanghai.
Photo Source: Lintao Zhang/Getty
The once vaunted game of Rafael Nadal appears to be on the make again. The Spaniard trounced an out-of-sorts Stan Wawrinka on Friday at the Shanghai Masters, 6-2, 6-1, for his first Top-5 win in well over a year.
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With the victory, Nadal becomes the second man in history to earn 300 victories at the Masters 1000 level, and sets up a semifinal clash with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Saturday.
The match started with good intensity from both players, but Nadal proved to have another level on this evening, while Wawrinka struggled to get his game out of second gear.
After five straight holds, Nadal drew first blood in the sixth game of the opening set. He set up his second break point by waltzing in behind a fierce forehand to knock off a forehand volley winner. On the ensuing point, Nadal drew the forehand error from Wawrinka to break for a 4-2 lead.
Nadal would continue to surge, reeling off a total of nine consecutive games against Wawrinka to lead 6-2, 5-0, before the Swiss could manage his third of three service holds on the night.
But it wouldn’t be long before Nadal finished the convincing victory in 64 minutes as a Wawrinka return sailed long.
Nadal finished with 13 winners against 14 unforced errors for the match, while Wawrinka, who appeared hobbled at times and just plain listless at others, tossed in 14 winners against 34 unforced.
Nadal has now won back-to-back matches against Top-10 opponents after snapping a string of five consecutive losses against the top-10 last night vs. Milos Raonic. It’s a feat he had not achieved since the 2014 French Open.
In the day’s first quarterfinal, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga booked a place in his 8th Masters 1000 semifinal with a 7-6(6), 5-7, 6-4 victory over South Africa’s Kevin Anderson.
Tsonga saved three set points in the opening-set tiebreaker and won the final five points to claim the set.
After dropping the middle stanza, Tsonga saved both break points he faced in the decider to claim his second victory in two tries over Anderson.
Nadal and Tsonga have met 11 times with the Spaniard holding an 8-3 edge, including their last two meetings which were both on hard courts.