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Patna : Top seed & 11-time champion Rafael Nadal, 34, Spain, 2nd seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, 22, Greece, 3rd seed Andrey Rublev, 23, Russia, and 6th seed Pablo Carreno Busta, 29, Spain, reached the Round of 16 of Barcelona Open, an ATP 500 event, at Barcelona, Spain, on April 21, 2021, night.
World No 3 Nadal beat qualifier Ilya Ivashka, 27, Belarus, in a three-set thriller 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 in 2nd round in over 2 hours surviving a scare. Ivshka was all over Nadal in the first set breaking his serve in the first game and then winning another break point to win the first set. Nadal had to use all his experience and guile to win the next two sets and win the match. Ivashka though put up strong resistence in third set. Nadal won 3 break points in the match to 2 by Ivashka. The Spainiard won 3 games in a row in the match to 2 by the Belarusian. Ivashka fired 6 Aces in the match to just 1 by Nadal.
World No 5 Tsitsipaps thumped World No 86 Jaume Munar, 23, Spain, 6-0, 6-2 in 2nd round winning 5 break points and 7 games in a row.Tsitsipas, who recently won the Monte Carlo Masters title, in all, won 63 points during the match to 33 by Munar.
World N 7 Andrey Rublev, 23, Russia, who recently reached the final of Monte Carlo Masters, beat World No 138 Federico Gaio, 29, Italy, a qualifier, 6-4, 6-3 in 2nd round. Rublev won 3 break points to 1 by Gaio. The Russian won 3 games in a row during the match to 2 by the ITalian. Rublev, in all, won 70 points to 55 by Gaio.
World No 13 Pablo Carreno Busta blanked World No 60 Jordan Thompson, 26, Australia, 6-4, 6-0 in 2nd round winning 4 break points and 7 games in a row. World No 147 Bernabe Zapata Miralles, 24, Spain, also reached the Round of 16 after his 2nd round opponent & 9th seed Fabio Fognini, Italy, the World No 27, retired in the second set trailing 0-6, 4-4 giving the Spainiard a walkover.