Nadal back to straight-sets wins as Mathieu crumbles

There were no five set wobbles this time around and definitely no need for any warnings from the umpire. Instead, Rafael Nadal at last delivered the world class performance we've come to expect from him. 

The Spaniard disposed of Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 to deliver a statement of real intent to his rivals and bounce back from the setbacks of going to the final set against Robin Haase and Philipp Petzschner in his last two rounds.

Nadal last lost a match at Wimbledon way back in the 2007 final and in this mood he will be more than a match for anyone, including his great rival Roger Federer who he beat to the title the last time he played here in 2008.

This match was easily his most comfortable yet in these Championships as he put the memory of Saturday's controversy, where he was accused of receiving advice from his coach and uncle Toni, behind him with an impressive display of ground strokes.

Poor Mathieu did not stand a chance. The world No.66 lost to Nadal for the 10th time out of 10 meetings despite a confident serving display and the occasional outstanding winner.

Mathieu started in electric fashion, forcing two break points, but Nadal soon came out of his shell and earned a break of his own when he somehow reached a Mathieu drop shot. The rest of the first set went with serve but Nadal upped his game at the start of the second. He took advantage in his fourth break point of the second set , despite Mathieu's brave serving efforts, and then never looked back.

A second break of serve soon followed before Mathieu had a medical time-out for a back injury. When he returned, the Frenchman continued to battle hard but Nadal was in no mood to hand out any sympathy.

Mathieu was run ragged all over court by the second seed and his mistake count was far too high. The left hander was able to capitalise on one of 21 unforced errors as Mathieu could only find the net at break point in the fifth game of the third set.

Nadal had no problems gleefully wrapping things up and a second break soon followed to give the Spaniard his most comfortable win of the tournament so far in exactly two hours.
Robin Soderling awaits in the quarter-finals on Wednesday and Nadal fans can sleep easy. He's back firing on all cylinders again.

Source: www.wimbledon.org