LONDON: Rafael Nadal had to dig deep to reach the quarter-finals at Queen’s with a hard-fought 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 win against Czech veteran Radek Stepanek on Thursday.
Few players have made the switch from clay to grass courts more effectively than Nadal, but the French Open champion is taking a while to find his feet on the lush lawns of west London as he prepares for the defence of his Wimbledon title.
The top seeded Spaniard admits he could do with some time off as he is still drained by his heroics in Paris and the strain showed a little during this inconsistent display.
So far Nadal has struggled to recapture the magical shot-making that dazzled Roger Federer in the French Open final.
He looked comfortable enough in the first set on Thursday and got the only break in the fifth game as a powerful backhand pass left Stepanek rooted to the spot.
The second set seemed to be following a similar pattern when Nadal broke for a 3-1 lead.
This time Stepanek, aided by some sloppy play from Nadal, broke back as the Spaniard served for the match.
Encouraged by that escape, Stepanek took advantage of a series of Nadal double faults to break again and then serve out the set.
At such pressurised moments Nadal usually finds the winning formula.
So it proved in the final set as he finally found some momentum, breaking twice in succession to set up a last eight clash against French fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Meanwhile, world number four Andy Murray ignored the pain of his ankle injury to reach the last eight with a 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) win over Serbian 14th seed Janko Tipsarevic. (Agencies)
