Nadal battles past Blake to enter China Open QF

Top seed Rafa Nadal battled through a tricky second round tie against American James Blake [ Images ] on Thursday to reach the quarter-finals of the $6.6 million China Open.

The world number two, playing his first tournament since picking an injury at the US Open [ Images ], was far from his rampaging best but again proved his fitness by winning 7-5, 6-7, 6-3 in a 143-minute contest.

Nadal's win evened up his career record against the gutsy New Yorker at 3-3.

Blake, ranked 24th after missing part of the season through injury, hit the ball low and hard in a tight first set but a string of errors handed Nadal a break for 6-5 and the Spaniard saved two break points in the next game before going 1-0 up.

Nadal had all the momentum early in the second but Blake refused to lie down, saving a match point at 5-3 then twice breaking back when his opponent was serving for the match before winning the tiebreak 7-4.

Blake continued to put pressure on the Australian Open [ Images ] champion's serve in the decider but then fatally handed Nadal a 5-3 lead with a double fault.

The 23-year-old former number one was handing out no second chances this time and served out to love to claim victory.

Nadal next faces Russian Marat Safin [ Images ], who beat seventh seeded Chilean Fernando Gonzalez [ Images ] for a place in the semi-finals at the Olympic [ Images ] tennis centre.

Croatian Ivan Ljubicic also reached the last eight with a 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 victory over Polish qualifier Lucasz Kubot, who ended Andy Roddick's [ Images ] title defence in the opening round.

In the women's draw, the third round proved a step too far for China's world number 226 Zhang Shuai, who lost 6-1, 6-4 to France's [ Images ] Marion Bartoli [ Images ].

Wildcard Zhang, who was the lowest ranked player to beat a world number one when she upset Dinara Safina [ Images ] in the second round, enjoyed 91 minutes back in the centre court limelight before succumbing to the 14th seed.