Nadal Looks Good While Booking Final Spot In Semifinals

Rafael Nadal looked good tonight in Cincinnati and was starting to look like the Rafa of old. He moved well, and his strokes -- especially his forehand -- looked good. The Spaniard dominated poor Tomas Berdych and gave his opponent no hope for winning for the first time in the tournament. He is still not quite in beatdown mode, but his play tonight looked promising.

Nadal jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the opening set and cruised to take the set after 43 minutes. After losing the first set, Berdych was not discouraged and dug in the second set. Unfortunately for him, Nadal broke the Czech in game eleven. The Spaniard then served out the set for the match at 6-4 7-5 after 101 minutes of play.

The top-four players booked all the semifinal spots for this tournament, and Nadal just took the final spot. Next up for the Spaniard is Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Nadal leads their head-to-head matchup 14-4, but the Serb's last victory over Nadal was last year at this very tournament in the semifinals. Also, the Spaniard is still very vulnerable to being upset tomorrow.

Luckily, Nadal is still improving since being away from the tour, but he is going to have to step it up a notch for Djokovic. It should be a good match tomorrow, so stay tuned.

(Image: Denise/tennisfiend)