Nadal closing in on Federer at Cincinnati

Rafael Nadal is as close to the No. 1 ranking as he ever been.

The second-seeded Spaniard will try to move even closer to that milestone on Friday when he faces tournament surprise Nicolas Lapentti in the quarterfinals of the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters.

The second-ranked Nadal has won his last five tournaments and if the 22-year manages to claim the championship at this hardcourt event he will overtake Roger Federer as the No. 1 player in the world.

The top-ranked player for a record 235 weeks, Federer had the opportunity to keep Nadal at bay a bit longer had he reached the semifinals here, but a third-round loss to Ivo Karlovic on Thursday ended that possibility.

Now the 12-time Grand Slam champion needs Nadal to slip up, though that would only delay what appears inevitable.

The only way Nadal won’t become No. 1 in the next three weeks is if he fails to advance Friday, loses before the third round at the Olympics and Federer wins the gold medal in Beijing.
If he reaches the semifinals here, Nadal will become No. 1 on August 18 and he is guaranteed to move atop the rankings August 11 by finishing as the runner-up.

Nadal is an ATP-best 63-7 this season and will carry a 31-match win streak into his encounter with Lapentti, who can’t be overlooked.

The unseeded 31-year-old from Ecuador has made of habit of knocking out seeded Spaniards this week, with consecutive upsets of No. 5 David Ferrer and No. 10 Fernando Verdasco en route to the quarters.

Another interesting side story is that Lapentti beat Nadal in their only previous meeting. While that match took place five years ago in Bastad, it was on clay - a surface Nadal has dominated throughout his career.

Playing in his first quarterfinal since 2002, Lapentti is facing long odds to reach his first ATP title and it may not be a cakewalk for Nadal should he advance to the final four.

The winner of that match faces a potential semifinal clash with third-seeded Novak Djokovic, who matches up with Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis in the quarters Friday.

Djokovic won his first Grand Slam title earlier this year at the Australian Open and appeared destined to challenge Federer and Nadal atop the rankings, but his season has taken a downturn after a disappointing second-round exit at Wimbledon and a quarterfinal loss to Andy Murray in Toronto last week.

The 21-year-old Serb is likely excited about the prospect of facing Nadal on a hard court with a chance of delaying his ascent to No. 1.

A win under those circumstances would exact a small measure of revenge for Djokovic, who twice failed to beat Nadal on clay this spring with the No. 2 ranking hanging in the balance.

Djokovic first needs to deal with the Gulbis, who lost their first meeting earlier this year in the French open quarterfinals. The 19-year-old reached this stage with an upset of seventh seed and 2007 finalist James Blake, who was the last American remaining in the draw.

On the opposite side of the draw, Karlovic will look to build on his win over Federer when he battles unseeded German Philipp Kohlschreiber in the quarters.

The hard-serving Croat - who leads the ATP with 657 aces this year - came into this tournament on a three-match losing streak, but has regained the form that led him to a title at Nottingham earlier this year.

Whoever emerges from that match will face the eighth-seeded Murray, who overcame a slow start to post a 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 win over veteran Spaniard Carlos Moya, the 2002 champion.

Murray looked uninspired in losing the first set to the 31-year-old and was broken in the first game of the second. From that point, however, he won 12 of the last 15 games and looked more like the player who recently reached the semifinals at Wimbledon and Toronto.

The 21-year-old Scot is seeking his third title of the year, having won in Doha and Marseille

First prize is $420,000.