Nadal rallies to reach fourth round in Miami

MIAMI, Florida: Rafael Nadal came back from an awful first set to defeat Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber 0-6, 6-2, 6-3 and advance to the fourth round of the Miami Open on Sunday.

The Spaniard, playing his 1,000th ATP match, suffered just the 14th 0-6 set of his career, claiming just 33 percent of first serve points won and making a string of unforced errors.

After looking badly out of sorts, Nadal was able to rediscover his form in the second set and in the end ran out a comfortable winner.

Japan’s Kei Nishikori came through a tough test against Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 7-6 (7/2), 6-7(5/7) 6-1.

Last year’s beaten finalist, Nishikori will face Argentine Federico Del Bonis, who beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 7-6 (7/5), 6-1.

Verdasco has yet to post a win against a top ten opponent this year but showed plenty of spirit in a two hours 44 minute contest on centre court at Crandon Park fighting back to win a second set tie-break.

But Nishikori stepped up in the third, running away with the set to ensure his progress.

Injury-plagued world number five Milos Raonic pulled out of the tournament shortly before his match against American Jared Donaldson, citing a recurrence of a hamstring injury.

Canada’s Raonic originally suffered the injury in the semi-final at Delray Beach and was forced to forfeit the final against American Jack Sock. He then missed this month’s Masters event at Indian Wells.

Meanwhile, world number one Angelique Kerber came back from a break down in both sets to beat American Shelby Rogers 6-4, 7-5 and move into the fourth round at the Miami Open.

With no sign of the rain that interrupted the past two days on Key Biscayne, Kerber was joined in the round of 16 by Britain’s Johanna Konta, American Venus Williams and Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova all who had comfortable wins.

Although ranked 61st in the world, Rogers has beaten Karolina Pliskova, Petra Kvitova, Simona Halep and Daria Kasatkina in the last year and had her eye on beating the top seed.

An upset looked possible when the American won the first three games of the opening set but Kerber recovered to win six of the next seven.

It was a similar story in the second set where Rogers, having saved a break point, hit some good winners to go 4-2 up only for the German to power back and secure a fourth round meeting with Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki who beat German Julia Georges 7-6 (7/5), 6-3.

Williams had no such difficulties in beating Romania’s Patricia Maria Tig, 6-3, 6-0 to set up a tough challenge against Russia’s Kuznetsova.

Tenth seed Konta beat 57th-ranked Pauline Parmentier of France, 6-4, 6-0 looking in better form than she had in laboring to a three-set win over Belarussian Aliaksandra Sasnovichher in two hours and 40 minutes.