Rafael Nadal is through to the quarter finals. Marin Cilic did not play bad at all. His first serve percentage was not bad at 55%. He hit 32 winners but the real tally should be much more, since a large number of winners against most of the opponents were returned by Nadal. He hit 8 aces to 3 by Nadal and his average first serve speed was 187 kms./hr., the same as in his match against John Isner. But since the opponent was different, he had no option but to take risks and go for lines. In the process he committed a staggering 48 unforced errors in the three sets played. These were significantly higher than 21 committed by Nadal. But it is not that Nadal played a spectacular match. The rate of conversion was a poor 36% by Nadal. But Nadal did earn 14 break points as against only 2 by Cilic. Nadal was content to play his normal game without being much dominant. Infact at one point in the initial stages, the longer rallies were going the Cilic way. But all this changed once Nadal got the upper hand. Initially he was drawing Cilic in, but when he was not able to pass him with the expected success, he changed his style. He started giving deep chips from back hand inviting Cilic to generate his own pace. This proved useful as Cilic committed a number of errors. Marin Cilic was not allowed to get into rhythm. He did hit 32 winners to 26 by Nadal, but these winners were wiped out by the large number of unforced errors committed. Rafael Nadal meets David Ferrer in the quarter finals. He will have to change his strategy in that game since David Ferrer is very frugal on unforced errors. Infact, in his four sets against Milos Raonic, the surprise of the tournament, he committed only ten unforced errors. But Ferrer does not have big weapons to outplay Nadal if both were to play at their normal level. It appears we are moving towards the gigantic match between Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray in the Semi-Finals.
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