Monte Carlo quarter finals are over, with some interesting results - the Rafa Nadal (1) victory over Dominic Thiem (5) was not one of those, although it was touted as the most mouth watering match of the four.
The top seed, who needs to win the tournament, which would be his eleventh title here, to retain his number one world ranking, slaughtered the Austrian 6-0 in the opening set. Nadal had ten break chances, and converted three, which were placed equally in each of the Thiem service games.
Things looked equally grim for Dominic in set two as Rafa gathered up the first three games. Thiem finally won a service game, two in succession in fact, but at 4-2 Nadal put the foot down again, holding serve and then breaking Thiem for the fifth time in the clash and booking his place in the semi finals 6-0 6-2.
Facing Nadal in the next match will be Grigor Dimitrov (4), who was a straight sets winner like Nadal, though David Goffin (6) offered somewhat greater opposition in his 6-4 7-6(5) loss.
The upset of the day was unseeded Kei Nishikori knocking over Marin Cilic. The two are famous for fighting out the 2014 US Open final, and Nishikori has been keen to exact revenge at every opportunity since.
The opening set was his, through a rock solid serving exhibition, and achieving the only service break early in proceedings. 6-4 and well on the way to a semi final.
It was a different Cilic in set two, and with the Croatian serving first the pressure was being exerted on Nishikori to play catch up which he failed to do at 1-2, and Cilic held sway at 3-1. 15-0 and appearing set to capitalise on the service break, Cilic requested immediate medical attention, apparently injuring his leg winning that point.
After resuming, Nishikori won the next six points, in the process breaking back and setting himself up to hold serve and level at 3-3.
Cilic, who looked anything but competitive, progressively began to move better, and thanks to some magic injections and movement of bandages further up his leg, he kept pace with Nishikori through to 4-4.
Nishikori took control once more, breaking for 5-4 and serving at 40-15 had two match points - these evaporated, along with a third, and Cilic broke back, ultimately forcing a tie break.
The second seed raced through this 7-1 and a deciding set was required.
Games went to serve until Nishikori broke Cilic to lead 5-3, and then, serving for the match a second time, completed the deal 6-4 6-7(1) 6-3.
He will now match racquets with Sascha Zverev (3), who came back from a set down to defeat Richard Gasquet 4-6 6-2 7-5.
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