Italian Open: Surprise! Rafael Nadal’s return collides with defeat in the quarterfinals

ROME – Clay king Rafael Nadal crashed at the Italian Open on Saturday, falling in a straight-sets loss to Argentine Diego Schwartzman in a tournament the Spaniard had won nine times.

Schwartzman, the eighth seed, suffered a tough 6-2, 7-5 loss in Nadal’s final warm-up before his bid for a 13th French Open and a record 20 Grand Slam in just over a week.

Men’s seeded Novak Djokovic also stumbled on Roman clay, but recovered to win 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 against German qualifier Dominik Koepfer.

“It wasn’t my night at all,” said Nadal, who had won the previous nine meetings against the 28-year-old Schwartzman but couldn’t match his rival’s impressive play on the red clay at Foro Italico.

“He played a great game, not me, when this happens you have to lose,” the 34-year-old continued.

“This is not the time for excuses. I haven’t competed for a long time, I played two good games ”.

The two-time defending champion was making a comeback after a six-month hiatus imposed by the coronavirus after skipping the US Open before Roland Garros with his first round on September 27.

“Losing so many services, you can’t hope to win a game, it’s something I have to fix, I know how to do it,” he warned.

“It’s a special and unpredictable year, I’ll probably come home and see.”

Schwartzman will next meet Canadian 12th seed Denis Shapovalov for a place in the final.

“Today I played my best tennis,” said the Argentine.

Djokovic, meanwhile, let his frustrations run wild in a two-hour battle with his 97th-ranked German rival.

Two weeks after his US Open breach for accidentally hitting a linesman with a ball, the Serbian struggled to contain his emotions, throwing his racket after a lost service game, screaming rage echoing in the silence of the empty center court.

“Well let me tell you, it is not the first or the last racket that I will break in my career. I’ve done it before, ”he warned.

Probably will do it again. I don’t want to do it, but when it comes, it happens.

“This is how I suppose I release my anger sometimes.”

Djokovic broke four times before advancing to his eleventh semi-final in Rome, where he reached the final nine times and won four titles.

The 33-year-old will face Norway’s Casper Ruud, who also had to fight to beat fourth seed Italian Matteo Berrettini 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/5).

“Clay is definitely Casper’s preferred surface,” Djokovic said of his first meeting with the 34th-ranked Norwegian.

“This is where he feels most comfortable. They are the semifinals and it’s anyone’s game I’ll do some homework and be ready for it. “

Ruud, son of former player Christian Ruud, becomes the first Norwegian to reach the quarterfinals of a Masters tournament.

Ruud, 21, was enjoying “a great opportunity for me to play against one of the big three.”

The elimination of Berrettini put an end to home hopes in the tournament that will be open to 1,000 spectators from the semifinals on Sunday.

In the women’s competition, Simona Halep stayed on track for her first Rome titles, advancing to the semifinals after her Kazakh rival Yulia Putintseva retired 6-2, 2-0.

Halep has twice finished runner-up in Rome in 2017 and 2018, and “really wants to win” the tournament.

“It’s one of the most important goals right now,” said Halep, who is on a 12-game winning streak after winning in Dubai in February and in Prague after the lockout.

She will play ninth-seeded Spain’s Garbine Muguruza for a spot in the semi-finals after the Spanish defeated US Open finalist Victoria Arazenka.

Defending champion Karolina Pliskova, the second-seeded, will face Czech Marketa Vondrousova, runner-up at last year’s French Open.