Thiem thumps Nadal to enter Madrid Open semifinals

The question, "Who will stop Rafael Nadal this season?", had been doing rounds among the tennis pundits has finally been answered. The Austrian World no. 7, Dominic Thiem, put an end to Nadal's winning run in Madrid in the quarterfinals as he stunned the Spaniard in straight sets 7-5, 6-3 to advance to the semi-finals.

Nadal, on the back of his winning streak of 21 matches and 50 sets, was on song until he met the Austrian in the Spanish capital. They met two weeks ago in Monte Carlo, where Nadal eased past Thiem two to love, but this time the Austrian had different plans as he avenged his defeat to halt Nadal's unbeaten clay court run.

Serving first up in the match, Nadal never looked comfortable as he handed over Thiem his first break point in the very first game but he eventually fought back and held his serve. After creating several break point opportunities, Thiem finally converted one to go 4-3 up in the first set but courtesy an error-strewn game, he couldn't serve out the set at 5-4 and Nadal broke his way back into the match to level things at 5-5.

But once again, it was the Austrian who held his nerve to break back before taking the first set 7-5. Thiem went 3-1 up in the second set before the Spaniard fought his way back to level things 3-3. The Austrian, however, changed gears to pocket 3 straight games and closed out the match in one hour and 56 minutes. This loss means Federer will replace Nadal as the world No. 1 in the updated ATP rankings.

Next up for Thiem is South African world no. 8 Kevin Anderson who defeated Serbian Dusan Lajovic 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-3 to advance to his maiden Masters 1000 semifinals. These two have already squared off on 6 occasions and Anderson leads the contest 6-0 with his recent triumph coming at Citi open in 2017.