Rafael Nadal continued to roll at the Chennai Open, entering the last eight stage of the tournament even as fifth seed Nicolas Mahut and seventh seed Werner Eschauer were shown the door on Thursday.
World no. 2 Nadal ended qualifier Rajeev Ram's popular run in Chennai with a 6-2, 6-1 win in the second round in an hour and five minutes.
"I don't know if I'm at the top of my game yet but I'm comfortable on court," said Nadal later. "The court is a little faster and it was little windy today. The match was tougher than the scorecard suggests, but I'm happy with the way I'm playing."
Ram, a US-based player of Indian origin, played his game as much as Nadal allowed him to. He served well, mixed it up, playing from the net as much as he could and drawing Nadal forward with an array of drop shots.
To his credit, Ram, knowing Nadal's prowess from the back of the court, did not engage in any baseline duels.
He kept the points short and wasn't afraid to take risks. But for the awry forehand and string of unforced errors, especially in the second set, Ram could've stretched Nadal farther than he did.
"He was playing some volleys, making some mistakes; I was not getting rhythm on my game. Surely, the match was closer than the scoreboard said."
The 23-year-old from Illinois had his best chance in the fifth game with two break points up his sleeve. He hit a backhand return long to squander one of them and saw Nadal come back at least twice in the next point to pin up at the net and take the game to deuce. The Spaniard then forced a backhand error and had a service winner to take a 4-1 lead in the set.
Ram served two double faults in the next game to hand the match to Nadal on the platter.
Nadal will take on fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who won a scratchy affair against Austria's Eschauer 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3).
Clay is the favoured surface of both, Garcia-Lopez and Eschauer, and given the way they stretched out the points they could well be playing on the red dust.
Earlier, rising teenager Marin Cilic of Croatia upset France's Mahut with a commanding 6-2, 6-4 win in an hour and 16 minutes.
Mahut, who had lost the doubles first round with Swiss partner Yves Allegro on Wednesday night, found the 6'5" Cilic's serve proved too hot to handle and lost five straight games after winning the first on his serve.
Cilic came back from a break down in the second set, as the players traded breaks in the first two games. He fired seven aces in the set and won the long (went up to five deuces) fifth game off the Frenchman to take the decisive lead.
Dutchman Robin Haase, who ousted second seed Marcos Baghdatis in the first round, easily dismissed Croatian qualifier Lovro Zovko 6-1, 7-5 and will now face Cilic in the quarter-final.
