Tokyo: Top-seeded Rafael Nadal advanced to the quarterfinals of the Japan Open with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Milos Raonic of Canada on Thursday.
Nadal, ranked No 2, will take on unseeded Santiago Giraldo of Colombia in the final eight. Giraldo beat Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 6-4, 7-6 (4) earlier.
"I was happy with almost everything today," Nadal said. "I was focussed with my serves without mistakes. I lost very few points on my serve in the last set."
In other matches, second-seeded Andy Murray overwhelmed Alex Bogomolov Jr of the United States 6-1, 6-2 in less than an hour, and third-seeded David Ferrer of Spain advanced with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Australian qualifier Matthew Ebden.
Trailing 6-5 and serving at 30-30 in the 12th game of the first set, Raonic double-faulted to hand Nadal a set point and then hit a forehand long to give the Spaniard the set.
In the second set, Nadal broke the big-serving Raonic in the sixth game to go up 4-2, then stayed on serve and closed out the contest in 1 hour, 30 minutes.
Nadal, the defending champion, got in 77 percent of his first serves in the victory and Raonic was not able to gain a single break point against the 10-time Grand Slam champion in the match.
Raonic's powerful forehand was impressive, but he also committed several crucial unforced errors in the loss.
"The top players do a few things better than the others," Nadal said. "The matches are decided by very few points. It is on these points where the top players play better."
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