Nalbandian Sets Blockbuster Showdown With Nadal

ATP World Tour Champion Rafael Nadal Tuesday advanced to the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open with a straight-sets win, dismissing Russian Dmitry Tursunov 6-3, 6-3 at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tennis tournament in Indian Wells. Tursunov held break point with Nadal serving for the match, but the Spaniard won the next three points to seal the victory.

The 22-year-old Nadal is attempting to reclaim the BNP Paribas Open title after falling to Djokovic in the semi-finals last year, but will first need to defeat David Nalbandian of Argentina. Nalbandian, a 6-4, 6-2 winner over Serbian Viktor Troicki, leads the head-to-head series 2-0 with crushing back-to-back wins in 2007 at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments in Madrid and Paris.
Nalbandian is one of only three active players to beat Nadal at least twice and have a winning record, along with Dominik Hrbaty (3-1) and James Blake (3-2)
Defending champion Novak Djokovic advanced to the fourth round with a 6-2, 7-6(1) win over German Tommy Haas. The World No. 3 will next face the winner between 16th-seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka and American Sam Querrey for a place in the quarterfinals.

Djokovic won his two break points in the opening set, but was forced into a tie-break after making good on just one of his nine opportunities in the second set. He lost the first point of the tie-break but held the German off the board the remainder of the way, clinching the victory in one hour and 47 minutes after Haas hit a return long.

The Serbian, who made his Indian Wells debut with a first-round exit in 2006, has not dropped a set en route to his two final runs the past two years. He lost to Spaniard Rafael Nadal in the 2007 title match, and prevailed against American Mardy Fish in three sets last year.

Djokovic said of his victory: "Better than the first match.  I think I played really well in the opening set, and then could have done the job a bit earlier. Had some break chances and didn't make a couple returns, and gave him a chance to come back into the match. So I was lucky, because it could go in the third set, and then who knows?"

Haas was looking to replicate his impressive showing last year in Indian Wells, when he posted wins over Andy Murray and Andy Roddick en route to the quarterfinals. The former World No. 2 falls to a 6-5 season record.

World No. 6 Juan Martin del Potro went the distance in his third round match against No. 30 seed Jurgen Melzer of Austria, prevailing 6-2, 2-6, 7-6(2) in two hours.

The 20-year-old is seeded to face ATP World Tour Champion Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals, but will first come up against the winner of the Marat Safin-John Isner match. Del Potro, who opened his 2009 campaign with the Auckland title, won his first four ATP World Tour titles in successive tournament appearances last summer.