Battling Nadal joins 200 club

Four-time champion Rafael Nadal clinched his 200th claycourt win yesterday to move into the French Open quarter-finals, but only after undergoing a tough examination by Brazil's Thomaz Bellucci.

Second seed Nadal claimed a 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 win and will face compatriot Nicolas Almagro, who won an all-Spanish battle against seventh seeded Fernando Verdasco 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 for a semi-final spot.

Third seeded Serbian Novak Djokovic also made the last eight with a 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 win over America's Robby Ginepri. He will face Austria's Jurgen Melzer, who ended Russian qualifier Teimuraz Gabashvili's run with a 7-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win.

Nadal is bidding to become only the second man to win five or more French Open men's titles, but he was distinctly under-cooked on Court Philippe Chatrier, dropping serve four times in a match featuring 12 service breaks.

Nadal insisted that his first round victory against Bellucci in 2008 was a far tougher prospect.

"That was probably my hardest match of the 2008 tournament. I was closer to losing a set than I was today," he said.

Nadal, who turns 24 on Thursday, broke his 22-year-old opponent in the first game of the match before the Brazilian hit back to level at 2-2.

But the Spaniard took immediate revenge, claiming a double break in the fifth and seventh games on his way to pocketing the first set.

Twice in the second set, fellow left-hander Bellucci gallantly retrieved breaks, but remained unable to capitalise as Nadal stretched to a two-sets lead.

Bellucci dropped serve again in the opening game of the third set, only for Nadal to hand it straight back.

The Spaniard recovered to lead 3-2 and took the match after 2hr 33min when Bellucci, whose high-risk strategy sparked 40 unforced errors, netted a service return.

Djokovic, scheduled to face Nadal in the last four, is convinced that the confident way he swept past Ginepri makes him a threat both to the Spaniard and champion Roger Federer.

He will face Melzer, the oldest man left in the draw at 29, and who became the first Austrian to make the last eight since former champion Thomas Muster in 1998.

Serena cruises

In the women's Open, Samantha Stosur, of Australia, stunned four-times former winner Justine Henin yesterday to wreck hopes of a dream quarter-final between the Belgian and top seed Serena Williams.

It was the first time that Henin had lost since the second round in 2004, a 24-match unbeaten run that was the third best on record and it put a spoke in the comeback trail she has been blazing since the start of the year.

It was also the second straight year that the fast-rising Gold Coast resident Stosur has reached the last eight in Paris, having lost in last year's semis to eventual winner Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia.

In sharp contrast to the Henin-Stosur thriller, which the Australian won 2-6, 6-1, 6-4, Williams breezed past Shahar Peer, of Israel, 6-2, 6-2.

The American insisted she was not shocked by Henin's dismissal.

"She is no pushover," she said of Stosur.

"She has beaten me before and I shall have to play my best game. You can never underestimate anyone and Sam is a wonderful claycourt player."

Joining Stosur and Williams in the last eight in the top half of the draw was dangerous Serbian fourth seed Jelena Jankovic who outplayed Daniela Hantchova of Slovakia 6-4, 6-2.