Rafa showing he's still king of clay

Murray vanquishes fiery Verdasco to advance to Paris quarterfinals

The thinking before this French Open was that maybe, just maybe, Rafael Nadal was a tad vulnerable.

He had lost three times on his beloved red clay already this year - more defeats than he ever had on the surface before heading to Paris.

Then came an admission, after the Grand Slam tournament's third round, that his back was bothering him and slowing his serves.

Well, leave it to the eight-time French Open champion's upcoming quarterfinal opponent - 2013 runner-up David Ferrer, one of the men who beat Nadal on clay this spring - to set the record straight.

"Rafael is always the favorite," Ferrer said.

Nadal certainly looked the part in the fourth round on Monday, when he won 18 points in a row during one stretch en route to beating 83rd-ranked Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 for a record 32nd consecutive victory at the French Open.

That broke Nadal's own mark of 31 and moved him a step closer to a fifth straight title in Paris.

The world No 1, now 63-1 for his career at the tournament, has won all 12 sets he's played in Paris in 2014, dropping a total of 23 games. He was asked whether he would have preferred a more taxing encounter by now.

"You never know what's better," replied Nadal, whose audience at Court Philippe Chatrier included musician Prince. "But the theory says it's better to win like this than win longer matches."

And his back? The one that flummoxed him during a loss in the Australian Open final in January, and then acted up Saturday, leading to an average first serve of 102 mph and top speed of 114 mph?

It didn't appear to be as much of an issue against Lajovic: Nadal averaged 107 mph, with a high of 119 mph.

"My back can be pretty unpredictable," said Nadal, who wore thick vertical strips of athletic tape under his shirt.

"I'm not lying. It's totally unpredictable. I don't want to speak too much about it."

Now he takes on No 5 Ferrer, who eliminated No 19 Kevin Anderson of South Africa 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1.

Last year's French Open final is one of 21 losses for Ferrer in 27 matches against fellow Spaniard Nadal, but Ferrer won their most recent meeting in straight sets at the Monte Carlo Masters in April.

As Ferrer himself noted, though, that was a best-of-three-set match. They'll be playing best-of-five on Wednesday.

"Tactically, I will have to be perfect," Ferrer said. "I hope I will instill some doubts in Rafa's mind, but if we play at our best level, both of us, he will be the better player."

The other quarterfinal at the top half of the draw will be Wimbledon champion Andy Murray against 23rd-seeded Gael Monfils of France.

Sharp exchange

Murray put a lid on a boiling Fernando Verdasco to defeat the Spaniard and reach the quarterfinals following a sharp exchange with the umpire on Monday.

Tempers frayed in the seventh game of the third set after Verdasco's serve was called out as he was heading back to the chair for the change of ends.

The left-hander asked umpire Pascal Maria to call in the supervisor to deal with the dispute before Murray conceded the point.

"He missed the return because my serve was to the line and he couldn't hit it with the strings," Verdasco told reporters after losing 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (3).

"So it was completely out of sense to serve a first serve again. I said to call the supervisor, and Andy said that it was fine, and it was a point for me."

Nursing the grudge as well as licking his wounds at failing in his bid to reach the Paris last eight for the first time, Verdasco said run-ins with Maria were nothing new.

"He's not the kind of umpire I get along with, I can tell you that," he said.

(China Daily 06/04/2014 page23)