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Patna : Second seed and winner of 19 Grand Slam singles titles Rafael Nadal, 34, Spain, brushed aside Dusan Lajovic, 30, Serbia, 6-1, 6-3 in Round of 16 at Foro Italico, Rome, Italy, to advance to Italian Open quarter-finals on September 18, 2020, late night. He will face 8th seed Diego Schwartzman, 28, Argentina, in QFs on September 20, 2020. Top seed Novak Djokovic, Serbia, will play his QFs math at 6 pm on September 19, 2020.
Nine time champion Nadal won 6 break points in the match to 2 by the Serbian. The Spainiard, also called ‘The King of Clay’, won 8 games in a row in the match to 3 by the Serbian. Nadal, in all won 62 points to 41 by Lajovic. Nadal’s winning percentage both on his first and second serve ( 65 % & 69%) was much higher than that of Lajovic’s (40 % & 56 %).Lajovic had stunned 13th seed Milos Raonic, Canada, in second round. Nadal had created 14 break point opportunities but could convert only 6 of them. He also served just 2 Aces in the match.
Schwartzman beat Hubert Hurkacz, 23, Poland, in a three-set thriller 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 in Round of 16 rallying back from one set down. Schwartzman won 5 break points in the match to 3 by Hurkacz, who had upset 9th seed Andrey Rublev, 22, Russia, in second round. Rublev had QFs at US Open recently. The Pole though won 80 points in the match to 78 by Schwartzman. Both the players won 4 games each in a row.