BARCELONA, Spain (AP) β Rafael Nadal avenged last year’s loss to Nicolas Almagro by beating his fellow Spaniard 6-3, 6-1 at the Barcelona Open on Wednesday, while U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic slumped to a second-round exit.
The second-seeded Nadal, who lost last week to Novak Djokovic in the Monte Carlo semifinals, rebounded with a solid performance to advance to the third round.
Almagro hit 19 unforced errors to nine for Nadal in a first set that he ceded on a costly double fault.
Then, after a spectator proposed marriage to his girlfriend between sets, the former No. 1 broke Almagro to go up 3-1 and rolled on.
Almagro hustled to save four match points in a long final game that included Nadal saving seven break points before he finally clinched the match with an ace.
Almagro upset Nadal on the same red clay court last year to end the eight-time champion’s run of 41 consecutive wins at the tournament he has dominated for almost a decade.
Nadal next faces either Fabio Fognini or Russian teenager Andrey Rublev.
Cilic lost to Victor Estrella of the Dominican Republic 6-4, 6-4. Estrella will next play Martin Klizan after the Slovak rallied past Juan Monaco 5-7, 6-0, 6-3.
Also, Santiago Giraldo of Colombia beat Joao Sousa of Portugal 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, to reach a third-round meeting against top-seeded Kei Nishikori, setting up a rematch of last year’s final won by the Japanese.
In a match between 19-year-olds, Sweden’s Elias Ymer won 2-6, 7-5, 7-6 (6) against Australia’s Nick Kyrgios in just under two-and-a-half hours.
Third-seeded David Ferrer brushed aside Albert Montanes 6-2, 6-3, while Pablo Andujar roared back to oust 11th-seeded Leonardo Mayer 2-6, 6-1, 6-2.
In the day’s biggest upset, Estrella broke Cilic four times, stealing his serve to go ahead 5-4 in the second set and finishing off the ninth-ranked Croat by holding serve to love.
Estrella, who had won only one match in his last five tournaments, celebrated after placing a long forehand out of Cilic’s reach on match point.
It was only Cilic’s third tournament of the season after he rested to recover from a shoulder injury. As the fourth seed, he had a bye in the first round.
“I was not too happy with the way I played,” Cilic said. “I made a lot of unforced errors. I feel I still need several matches to get my form to a good stage.”
Estrella, ranked 53rd, last year became the first Dominican to finish a season in the top 100.
