Australian Open: Nadal sweeps Tiafoe to storm into semis round

Melbourne (Australia), Jan 22 (ANI): World number two Rafael Nadal ended the fantastic run of French player Frances Tiafoe in the Australian Open to advance into the semi-final round of the men’s singles event here on Tuesday.
The 32-year-old swept aside his French opponent 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in their quarters clash that lasted one hour and 47 minutes.
The Spaniard showed complete dominance in the match as he won 84 per cent of his service points and smashed 29 winners to outclass Tiafoe who committed 34 unforced errors in the clash.
In the first set, Nadal won 14 of the first 17 points to push his opponent on the backfoot. Tiafoe, who was trailing 0-3 in the set, tried making a comeback but Nadal did not leave much scope for the French player and won the set 6-3.
Tiafoe came with an improved sense of rhythm in the second set but Nadal hit back with an equal amount of intensity. With set tilted 5-3 in Nadal’s favour, Tiafoe did well to resist the Spanish player on the court. Nadal, however, played hard and sealed the second set in the next game with a smashing winner.
The third set saw the French player losing his first service game which pushed him way down in the deciding set. Some ground stroke errors by Tiaofe helped Nadal getting closer to the victory as he got break at the score of 5-2. Committing no mistake in the execution of the shorts, Nadal eventually emerged victorious not only in the set but match, as well.
Next, Nadal will take on Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas, who had knocked out defending champion Roger Federer from the title race in their pre-quarters round, to enter the final round of the competition.
In women’s singles event, Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic defeated Australia’s Ashleigh Barty 6-1, 6-4 to enter the semi-final round of the Australian Open. (ANI)