Rafael Nadal advanced to his first ATP Tour semifinal in two years by overcoming Mariano Navone 6-7 (2), 7-5, 7-5 in an intense four-hour match on Friday at the Nordea Open in Bastad, Sweden.
In the third set, Nadal held a 5-2 lead before Navone from Argentina broke his serve twice to even the score at 5-5. However, Nadal lost just one point in the final two games to secure the set.
The Spaniard’s last semifinal appearance was at Wimbledon in 2022. His opponent for Saturday’s clay-court semifinal will be Croatian qualifier Duje Ajdukovic, who beat Brazil’s Thiago Monteiro 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. Portugal’s No. 7 seed Nuno Borges will face Argentina’s Thiago Agustin Tirante in the other semifinal.
Nadal is looking forward to at least one more match on his preferred surface before representing Spain at the Summer Olympics at Roland Garros later this month, where he has won 14 French Open titles.
Hamburg Open Germany’s Alexander Zverev, the top seed, comfortably defeated eighth-seeded Zhizhen Zhang of China 6-4, 6-3 to secure a quarterfinal victory in front of his home crowd.
In the semifinals, Zverev will face Spain’s Pedro Martinez, who emerged victorious with a 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 win over Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo.
Saturday’s second semifinal will see a clash between Arthur Fils of France, seeded fifth, and Argentina’s third-seeded Sebastian Baez. Fils advanced after a 6-4, 4-1 walkover victory against Denmark’s Holger Rune, while Baez overcame Italy’s seventh-seeded Luciano Darden with scores of 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
In the Swiss Open Gstaad, top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas from Greece moved to the semifinals by defeating Italy’s seventh-seeded Fabio Fognini 6-4, 6-3 in just 68 minutes. He is set to face another Italian, Matteo Berrettini, the sixth seed, who won against Canada’s third-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime with scores of 7-6 (7), 7-6 (2).
Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff, the fifth seed, beat fourth-seeded Tomas Martin Etcheverry of Argentina with scores of 7-5, 3-6, 6-3. Struff’s next opponent in the semifinals will be Quentin Halys of France, who triumphed over Brazil’s Gustavo Heide with a scoreline of 6-1, 7-5 in a match featuring two unseeded players.
