Intro:

There were wins for fifth seed Pablo Cuevas and fourth seed Andreas Seppi in the second round of the German Open in Hamburg on Thursday (30 July).

Despite being forced to a tie-break in the second set, top-seed Rafael Nadal earned a straight-sets victory over Czech Republic's Jiri Vesely on Thursday (30 July) to seal his place in the last eight of the German Open in Hamburg.

Script:

Rafa Nadal has been far from his usual sparkling form of late, being knocked out in shock fashion at Wimbledon by Dustin Brown.

In his first tournament appearance since then, the Spaniard is looking to get back to his best on his favourite surface.

On Thursday he was up against Czech wild card Jiri Vesely and the former world number one controlled the first set.

Nadal eventually sealing it 6-4, a single break of serve enough for the Spaniard.

The second proved a tougher affair with Vesely pushing Nadal all the way to a tie-break.

But the world number 10 held firm as he closed out the match 6-4 7-6 to secure his spot in the last eight.

Nadal is going in search of a first win in Hamburg since 2008 and he can now look forward to a match with Pablo Cuevas.

This after the Uruguyan overcame a hard-fought encounter with big serving Pole Jerzy Janowicz.

Cuevas needed three sets but eventually secured the win 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 to advance.

Finally, fourth seed Andreas Seppi beat German wild card Florian Mayer to book his place in the quarter finals.

The Italian came back from a set down to beat Mayer 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

In doing so, he set up an all-Italian match-up in the next round after Simone Bolelli beat Spain's Jaume Munar.