Nadal nearing another Barcelona final

Rafael Nadal is storming toward another Open Sabadell Atlantico championship.

The top-seeded Spaniard advanced to the semifinals of the claycourt event Friday with a 6-4, 6-2 win over unseeded Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela.

Nadal is gunning for an unprecedented fourth consecutive title here and the 21-year-old hasn’t been met with much resistance.

He has won 18 straight matches at this $1.39 million tournament and has taken 23 consecutive sets dating to 2006.

Nadal continues to build on his already phenomenal claycourt numbers. The lefthander is 115-3 on the surface since the start of 2005 and has won 101 of his last 102 matches on it.

Nadal, who had a record 81-match claycourt win streak snapped by world No. 1 Roger Federer in the Hamburg final in May, is currently riding a 20-match win streak on the surface.

The world No. 2 since July 2005 and ATP leader with 29 wins this season, Nadal captured his 19th career claycourt title on Sunday with a win over Federer in the Monte Carlo final.

Second-seeded David Ferrer is through to the round of four on the other side of the draw after claiming a 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 win over No. 6 Tommy Robredo in an all-Spanish quarterfinal.

The fifth-ranked Ferrer is seeking his second claycourt title of the year after winning his sixth career championship in Valencia last month.

Ferrer’s semifinal opponent is 14th-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka, who continued a strong tournament with a 6-3, 6-7 (6-8), 6-4 win over Spain’s Albert Montanes.

The Swiss No. 2 behind Federer, Wawrinka posted his most impressive win of the tournament Thursday with a straight sets upset of No. 3 David Nalbandian. The 23-year-old has split four career meetings with Ferrer.

Nadal will face either 10th-seeded Nicolas Almagro or unseeded German Denis Gremelmayr, who reached the quarters on Thursday with a 6-4, 6-0 upset of 15th-seeded Russian Dmitry Tursunov.

Gremelmayr has played well of late as the 26-year-old was a semifinalist last month in Estoril, where he pushed Federer to three sets.

Almagro is enjoying a strong claycourt season at 23-3 on the surface, including titles in Acapulco and Costa Do Sauipe.

First prize is just over $210,000.