Seventh seed Kei Nishikori overcame fellow baseliner David Ferrer for the second time in as many weeks on Wednesday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. Nishikori showed few signs of the right wrist pain that had forced his withdrawal from last week’s Mutua Madrid Open in a 7-5, 6-2 second-round victory over 2010 finalist Ferrer, who is just one of 13 players in ATP World Tour history to record 700 match wins.
"I felt pretty good," admitted Nishikori. "It was a little bit different condition-wise from last week and here, so I had to make some adjustments. In the match there were many ups and downs, especially in the first set, but I think overall I played a pretty good match."
The Japanese star, who broke Ferrer’s serve five times in the 81-minute win, is now 18-6 on the season that includes runner-up finishes in Brisbane (l. to Dimitrov) and Buenos Aires (l. to Dolgopolov). Nishikori now takes on former World No. 4 Juan Martin del Potro, who defeated Kyle Edmund mid-afternoon. Del Potro leads Nishikori 4-1, but the Florida-based Japanese did win their October 2016 meeting in Basel.
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Rafael Nadal, brimming with confidence after lifting three straight ATP World Tour trophies, led 3-0 after 24 minutes of play when his fellow Spaniard, Nicolas Almagro, retired due to a knee injury. Fourth seed Nadal is bidding to capture an eighth trophy at the Foro Italico, venue of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament.
He will next play 13th seed Jack Sock, who prevailed in a marathon 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(1) second-round battle over Jiri Vesely. Little separated both players throughout the match, but the American found a final burst of energy in the tie-break and won the last six points to advance in two hours and 35 minutes. Sock also needed more than two hours to win his opening match on Tuesday against Diego Schwartzman.
Nadal leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head series with Sock 3-0, including a convincing win this March at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Miami. Their match on Thursday may come down to stamina, with Sock having already spent six hours and 12 minutes on court in Rome (including doubles) compared to 24 minutes for Nadal.
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