Rafael Nadal makes it 18 straight against Gasquet to reach US Open fourth round

Rafael Nadal’s nose was just fine. So was his tennis. No stitches or even a bandage, 48 hours after he drew blood by accidentally smacking himself with his racket – and not a trace of trouble, as usual, against Richard Gasquet.

Nadal improved to 18-0 against Gasquet across their careers and ran his head-to-head set streak to 34 in a row by winning their third-round matchup at the U.S. Open 6-0, 6-1, 7-5 on Saturday night.

After No 2 seed Nadal grabbed the initial nine games, Gasquet finally claimed one 70 minutes in. When a 97mph serve drew a netted return from the 22-time grand slam champion, Gasquet raised both arms as the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd feted him with a standing ovation.

Things reverted to form from there between the two 36-year-olds for the remainder of that set, with Nadal’s groundstroke power and placement too much for Gasquet, who used to be a top-10 player but is now ranked 91st.

Only in the third set did Gasquet make things more competitive, getting to 5-all, before Nadal take the last two games to improve to 22-0 in Grand Slam matches in 2022.

Next for Nadal comes a matchup on Monday against No 22 Frances Tiafoe, an American who reached the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for the third year in a row. Nadal is 2-0 against Tiafoe.

“Now I believe I can beat him. ... I’m definitely going to come after him,” said the 24-year-old Tiafoe, who is from Maryland.

The key?

“Match his intensity from the first point to the last,” Tiafoe said after getting past No 14 Diego Schwartzman 7-6 (7), 6-4, 6-4. “You can’t really have any dips. He takes advantage of it.”

Nadal won the Australian Open in January and the French Open in June, then got to the semi-finals at Wimbledon before pulling out of the grass-court