The Madrid Open had some drama over the past few days, as both Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka are heading home after losses and Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal are through to the next round after scoring victories at the event.
Nadal won in straight sets 6-3 6-4 over Benoit Paire to advance into the third round, while Djokovic lost a tough match the previous day to Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov to get sent home early. The players are getting ready for the French Open at the end of May and Nadal was able to break his opponent in each set to take the victory. Nadal will next play Mikhail Youzhny, who was able to defeat Nicolas Almagro in his match 7-6 4-6 6-2.
Serena Williams made her way through smoothly with a 6-3 6-1 win over Maria Kirilenko and now she will play against Spanish wildcard Anabel Medina Garrigues before heading to the Franch Open after the tournament. Williams has looked strong all tournament and may be ready to claim another title.
Roger Federer is out of the tournament as well after losing 6-4 1-6 6-2 to Japanese player Kei Nishikori, while Djokovic is also done. The Swiss star took away any chance at a matchup with Nadal with the loss and now he is still looking for his first title win of the season. Victoria Azarenka lost her cool in her match and smashed her racket and lost a point during her 1-6 6-2 6-3 loss to Russian Ekaterina Makarova.
"I am taking things day by day and I don't know if I am in perfect shape or not," Nadal, who could meet great rival Roger Federer in the semi-finals, said in an interview with Spanish television broadcaster La Sexta.
Williams, chasing a fourth title of the year and the 50th of her career, was joined in the quarter-finals by second seed Maria Sharapova who knocked out unseeded German Sabine Lisicki 6-2 7-5. In a match dubbed "the battle of the veteran Tommies", 13th-seeded German Tommy Haas, 35, continued his winning run after his victory at the Munich event at the weekend with a 6-3 7-5 second-round success against 31-year-old Spaniard Tommy Robredo.
Nishikori will play another Spaniard, wild card Pablo Andujar, for a place in Saturday's semi-finals, while a chastened Federer heads back to the practice court ahead of next week's Rome Masters.
