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Nadal defeated despite creating 26 break points

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez created one break point in the entire match © Getty Images

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Rafael Nadal suffered a shock defeat in the semi-finals of the Thailand Open on Saturday, losing to compatriot Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in three sets.

Garcia-Lopez, ranked 53 in the world, even allowed the world No. 1 to take the first set before battling back to score the biggest victory of his career. The second-set tiebreaker proved pivotal, with Garcia-Lopez moving up a gear to take it 7-3 in a 2-6 7-6(3) 6-3 victory.

The speed of the court, which encouraged pace off the bounce, had been singled out as a potential concern for Nadal before the tournament began. However, having dropped just five games in each of his first two matches, the newly-crowned US Open champion looked set to make a winning return to action.

The first set only confirmed those expectations as Nadal ran through his fellow Spaniard, converting two break points and creating ten. However, the pace of his progress slowed significantly in the second, with neither player finding a break despite Nadal carving out 16 opportunities. By contrast, Garcia-Lopez had created nothing, yet it was he who stole the tiebreaker.

From there the big-serving Spaniard drew confidence, finding the only breakthrough of the decider, clinching victory despite winning less points in the match.

Garcia-Lopez will play Jarkko Nieminen in Sunday's final, after the Finn beat Benjamin Becker 6-3 6-2. Becker failed to register a single break of service in a match that barely lasted an hour.

At the Malaysian Open, Andrey Golubev continued his impressive week, defeating fifth seed David Ferrer. Golubev beat Robin Soderling to reach the semi-finals, and he maintained that form to chalk up a 7-5 7-6(4) win over Ferrer on Saturday.

He will face Mikhail Youzhny in the final, after Youzhny won the all-Russian encounter with Igor Andreev 3-6 6-0 6-2.

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