Nadal sees off López to reach quarterfinals

Spain's top-ranked seed at the Australian Open matched the form card to reach the quarterfinals over the weekend. World number two Rafa Nadal made fairly light work of his Davis Cup teammate Feliciano López, for whom familiarity must breed mild contempt.

López has played Nadal 11 times and won just twice, in 2003 in Basel and in the quarterfinals at Queen's Club in 2010. In their last two meetings on hard courts Nadal had won in straight sets and so it proved again, the 2009 champion cruising to a quarterfinal meeting with Tomas Berdych with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win.

"Rafa ensured that my tactic couldn't function," observed López. "From the baseline few players can go up against him. He served very well, sending down high balls on my backhand so I couldn't attack him. He made me play in areas of the court I'm not used to and where my game couldn't hurt him."

Nadal, meanwhile, hoped that he would not suffer the same fate as the past two years at the same stage, when he retired hurt against Andy Murray in 2010 and was beaten by David Ferrer last year after damaging a hamstring in the opening set. "Hopefully it won't happen this time. It's tough to have to go out of a tournament like Australia in the quarters."

Nadal could have played another Spaniard, world number 10 Nicolás Almagro, in the last eight - but Berdych won an ill-tempered match in which the Czech adjudged that Almagro had purposely aimed a ball at his head. "The court is pretty big and there is always space to put the ball in," the seventh seed noted. "Even if you are three or four feet away you don't need to hit it at someone's face." Berdych refused to shake hands with Almagro, to the chagrin of the crowd on Hisense Arena.

Ferrer eased through to the fourth round with a 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 win over Juan Ignacio Chela and on Monday plays France's Richard Gasquet for a place in the last eight, where either Novak Djokovic or Lleyton Hewitt awaits the winner.