Tennis: Djokovic, Nadal, Murray cruise into Madrid quarters
Novak Djokovic beat Roberto Bautista Agut 6-2, 6-1 to reach the Madrid Masters quarter-finals.
MADRID (AFP) - World number one Novak Djokovic racked up his 30th win of a dominant season with a 6-2, 6-1 destruction of Spain s Roberto Bautista Agut to reach the Madrid Masters quarter-finals on Thursday.
The resurgent Rafael Nadal and defending champion Andy Murray also remained on course for a semi-final clash as they eased past Sam Querrey and Gilles Simon respectively in straight sets.
Djokovic is playing in Madrid for the first time in three years, but hasn t taken long to adjust to the different conditions in the altitude of the Spanish capital as he has reached the quarters for the loss of just nine games.
"After a long game at 2-2 in the first set, I managed to break his serve. It was a flawless performance after that, everything worked very well," said Djokovic.
"Today the way I played gives me a lot of satisfaction. I m just hoping I can continue playing this well tomorrow."
The Serb will continue his quest for a fifth title of the season against Milos Raonic as the big serving Canadian dumped out seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4, 6-4.
Nadal stretched his perfect start to the European clay-court season to 12 matches as he fought back from going down an early break to beat Querrey 6-4, 6-2.
The 14-time Grand Slam champion is in fine form after victories in Monte Carlo and Barcelona and is seeking to break Guillermo Vilas record with a 50th clay-court title in Sunday s final.
Nadal started slowly as Querrey stormed into a 3-0 lead and had a break point to lead 5-2.
However, Nadal turned the match around by winning six straight games to seal the first set and break early in the second.
Querrey broke back to level at 2-2, but Nadal pulled away in the final stages to remain on course for a fifth title in Madrid.
"I had the confidence that if I managed to make the rallies longer, more than three balls, I knew that things could turn around," said Nadal.
"Luckily that s what happened. I saved that important point when we were at 4-2. Then from 4-2 I managed to break him and from there on things went more or less perfectly."
Nadal next meets Portugal s Joao Sousa who overcame Jack Sock 6-1, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2.
Murray extended his impressive record over Simon to 14-2 with a 6-4, 6-2 win over 16th seed.
The two-time Grand Slam champion will face Tomas Berdych in the last eight after the Czech got the better of David Ferrer 7-6 (10/8), 7-5.
"After the first six or seven games I really started to hit the ball well," said Murray.
"I served well throughout the match. It was a good performance.
"Normally against Gilles it s always a complicated match because of the way he plays.
"He always makes it very difficult. There are a lot of long rallies, but because of the conditions, it was a bit faster, I was able to get a lot more free points on my serve."
World number six Kei Nishikori continued his fine form on the clay to reach the last eight with a 6-4, 7-5 win over 10th seed Richard Gasquet.
Nishikori faces controversial Australian Nick Kyrgios on Friday after he dug deep to battle past Uruguayan clay-court specialist Pablo Cuevas 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-3.
In the women s Madrid Open, the only remaining seed Simona Halep was victorious in an all-Romanian quarter-final against Irina-Camelia Begu 6-3, 0-6, 6-1.
Halep -- a finalist in Madrid in 2014 - will face former US Open champion Sam Stosur after she beat Patricia Maria Tig 6-3, 6-4.
American qualifier Louisa Chirico also continued her fairytale run to reach the semi-finals.
Chirico, ranked 130 in the world, beat Australian Daria Gavrilova 7-6 (7/1), 6-2 to reach her first ever WTA semi-final where she will face Dominika Cibulkova, who came from a set down to beat the fourth Romanian in the quarters, Sorana Cirstea, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
