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Sousa's got 1-21 against Top 10 players

The Portuguese got to Madrid with 4-12 score on the ATP level, and his season's generally been weak so far. Rafa was in a tight spot against Querrey in the first round, but got out of it. He claims he knows Sousa very well because they practiced together on Mallorca last December

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After beating Kuznetsov 6-3 6-3, Nadal had to face Querrey in the third round of Madrid. Even though Querry doesn't seem as dangerous on clay as he does on hard courts or indoors, he's playing at an altitude here in Madrid, and we had a chance to see lots of matches where the serve was the key.

Rafa did win in straight sets in the end, it seemed routinely, but the first set could've ended much more differently, and influence the match in general.

Querrey lead the first set 4-1 and had a break-point for 5-1. If he won that game, he'd have at least two set serves against Nadal. Of course, Querrey would most likely win that set. However, he missed the break-point, and then 40-15 for 5-2. He lost his momentum there, and after 1-4, Nadal won five games in a row and won the first set 6-4. As expected, Querrey was nowhere near as dangerous after that, and Rafa won the second set routinely, really.

- I didn't practice over night, so it felt completely different. It was a bit slower today. At the beginning, when we were warming up, I felt a little weird, but I practiced and played well this week. After a slow start, I managed to turn the match around. Luckily, the match went well after that - Nadal said, and then commented on Sousa:

- He's a great player and we know each other well. We practiced together on Mallorca by the end of the last year. When he gets a few wins, he can be very dangerous. He beat Sock today, and that's a good, dangerous player, especially at an altitude. He'll be read for tomorrow. I have to be confident and I hope I'll be ready tomorrow.

As for Sousa, absolutely nothing pointed at him playing the quarterfinal here. He's had an awful season with no results. His score was 4-12 at the ATP level before coming to Madrid, he had low confidence, bad form, no rhythm. But here he is, connecting wins against Mahut and Granollers. You could say he did nothing special there, but his win against Sock deserves praise.

After saving four break-points in the first game of the match, Sousa dominated the rest. He had two breaks, and missed a break-point in another game. He outplayed Sock completely. He continued doing so in the second set, too, leading with a break, but he lost it in the sixth game. He then saved two set-points at 5*-6, but lost a tie-break. There was even a danger of momentum turning to Sock's side then, but it didn't happen. Sousa beat Sock in the third set without a given break-point and with two breaks, and got to play against Nadal.

These two faced each other once, and Rafa won by losing only one game. Realistically, there's no need to dissect them to see that Rafa is the big favorite here. Especially because everything Sousa bases his tennis on, Nadal does better. Also, Sousa's score against the Top 10 players is 1-21, and that says a lot. That one win was against Ferrer, but it was hard courts and three seasons ago. Also, in those 21 defeats, Sousa got only four sets, twice against Murray, once against Roger and once Raonic.