Roger Federer has been defeated by Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinal of the BNP Paribas Open. Nadal won the match in the straight sets by 6-4, 6-2.
More than 16000 spectators were out there to watch this encounter. There was hardly an empty seat at the Indian Wells Tennis garden. A tight contest was anticipated by the spectators, but, that wasn’t the case to be. Nadal dominated in both the sets and ended up winning the match quite easily.
This was the 29th time that these two great players were locking horns with each other. Out of the previous 28 matches, Nadal had won 18, while, Federer had won 10.
The last time that these two players had played against each other was in the same tournament last year. In that match, Federer had secured an easy victory.
In the opening set, Nadal got a breakthrough in the 7th game and took a lead of 4-3. In the next two games, both the players held their serve. In the 10th game, a breakthrough was needed by Federer which he failed to get and Nadal won the opener by 6-4.
In the second set, Nadal started with two consecutive serve breaks i.e. in the 1st and the 3rd game. He got ahead by 3-0 in a hurry. Federer made a slight comeback by breaking Nadal’s serve in the 4th game and then, by holding his serve in the 5th game. At the end of the 5th game, Federer was trailed by 2-3.
Nadal broke Federer’s serve for the third time in the set in the 7th game and then, wrapped up the encounter with a serve hold in the 8th game.
In the semi final, Nadal will take on Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic.