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* The main actions of Nadal’s victory in the round of 16 at Roland Garros
The Spaniard Raphael Nadal (No. 5 in the ranking) survived this Sunday a battle of five sets and nearly 4 hours and 30 minutes on center court Philippe Chattier beat the canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (No. 9) by 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6 and 6-3 and find themselves in the quarter-finals of Roland Garros with Serbian Novak Djokovic.
It is the 109th victory in 112 matches played in Paris for Nadal, who is looking to take his record of Roland Garros titles to 14 and his Grand Slam titles to 22. But the Spaniard had to fight hard to claim victory, with Auger-Aliassime. leading him to the fifth set, which so far only two other players had achieved since 2006. Such was the effort the match demanded of him that, once it was over, when the Canadian left the field to a huge ovation , the Spaniard turned around (he was changing his shirt) to join in the applause, which only stopped when his opponent got lost in the tunnel that led him to the locker room. An attitude of sporting chivalry much celebrated on social networks.
Nadal and Djokovic will meet on Tuesday for the 10th time at Roland Garros and the 59th of their career, with a favorable record for the Spaniard 30-28 and 7-2 in Paris, even if the Serb has already beaten him in the quarterfinals. final of 2015 and in the semi-finals of last year, an edition which he would later win against Stefanos Tsitsipas. In fact, Djokovic is the only player capable of beating Nadal twice at Roland Garros.
Djokovic appears in this match without giving up a single set and after clearly beating the Argentinian this Sunday Diego Schwartzman (No. 16 16) by 6-1, 6-3 and 6-3 in just two hours and 15 minutes.
Once again, the Balkan has surpassed the Argentinian as he had done the previous six times head to head: US Open 2014, Roland Garros 2017, Rome 2019 and 2020 in the final, Australia 2020 and the same year in the phase of Masters bands played in London.
Previously, he had defeated the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka (99), the Slovak alex molcan (38), Slovenian Aljaz Bedene (195).
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