Rafael Nadal defeated Richard Gasquet 6-0 6-1 7-5.
Photo: A.P.
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“He’s a great player, very charismatic, very fast,” Nadal said of Tiafoe.
“He can play very aggressively.
Nadal was left with a nosebleed when he accidentally hit his face with a racket on Thursday, but reported no lingering effects on Saturday.
“It’s a little bigger than usual, but it’s okay,” Nadal said. “Not yet the nose.”
Nadal and Gasquet, who entered the ranks of junior tennis together, first met professionally on clay at Estoril in 2004, with Nadal winning in three sets.
Since that first meeting, the duo’s head-to-head record has been a tale of relentless dominance by Nadal.
Gasquet has only four sets from the Spanish masters, the last of which was the 2008 Canadian Masters.
Saturday’s matchup once again followed the same script, with Nadal delivering a relentless and overwhelming victory.
Nadal overwhelmed Gasquet with ferocious groundstrokes and tormented his opponents with 35 pinpoint winners in corners.
Gasquet almost boosted his confidence early in the first set when he scored three break points at 0-40.
However, Nadal scored five straight points to hold his serve. This was roughly on par with France’s world ranking of 91, whose best performance in New York was a semi-final appearance in 2013.
After taking the first set 6-0, Nadal threatened to repeat the margin in the second set, and in the end Gasquet held serve for the first time in the match to make it 3-1.
This gave Gasquet the loudest cheers of the night from the Arthur Ashe crowd, and the Frenchman responded with arms raised in applause.
Regular service resumed soon afterward, but Gasquet was broken again to go down 5-1 and Nadal held the set.
Gasquet put up stronger resistance in the third set, dropping serve before recovering to break back and hold the match at 5-5.
But Gasquet wilted in the 11th game, and Nadal took a 6-5 lead to wrap up the win.
