World number one Rafael Nadal admitted he must just ‘move on’ after his 41-match winning streak at the Barcelona Open was brought to an end by Nicolas Almagro in the quarter-finals.
Nadal started well on his favoured clay surface and claimed the first set with relative ease but after losing the tie break in the second, he was then broken twice in the third to hand the match to his fellow Spaniard 2-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-4.
The 27-year-old saw his impressive run of 11 years without a loss at the competition brought to an end, his only previous Barcelona defeat came in 2003 to Alex Corretja.
During his dominant period spanning over a decade he only dropped two sets as he further enhanced his tag as the ‘king of clay’.
However, after being knocked out by Almagro – who he had beaten in all 10 of their previous meetings – Nadal insisted that he will not dwell on the defeat and will look to bounce back at the Madrid Masters.
Nadal said: “I had a lot of chances in the second set when I had the match more controlled but I didn’t take them.
“As the match went on I was less calm but I still had openings in the third set at 3-1 and at 4-4 which I didn’t take.
“This is tennis and you just have to keep going.”
The 13-time Grand Slam winner – who is looking to stretch his record of French Open successes to nine titles in May – will be hoping performances improve after also being knocked out in the quarter-finals by another Spaniard in David Ferrer in Monte Carlo last week.
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