Rafael Nadal of Spain in action against Denis Gremelmayr of Germany during their third round match at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open yesterday. Nadal won 6-2, 6-2

By N D Prashant/Doha

On a windy and cold evening, defending champion Roger Federer and World No 2 Rafael Nadal remained hot to storm into the quarter-finals of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open at the Khalifa Tennis and Squash Complex yesterday.
Top seed Nadal eased past qualifier Denis Gremelmayr  of Germany with a 6-2, 6-2 victory in a contest that lasted for an hour and 29 minutes, while Federer had a cakewalk 6-2, 6-3 win over Slovenian Grega Zemlja to extend his unbeaten record to 19 matches.
In the quarters today, Nadal will now meet Russia’s Mickhail Youzhny, who defeated I Karlovic of Croatia 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-3, while Federer will take on Italian Andreas Seppi, who beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-5, 6-3.
Tackling the wind would have been one of the most challenging tasks for most players yesterday but not for Federer. He was simply in awesome form and continued in the same style of play that saw him thrash last year’s finalist Nicolay Davydenko in the first round on Tuesday.
“It is important not to get frustrated in the wind, like I maybe did when I was younger. You become used to it. It was also very cold for all of us, but it’s how it goes, you know, especially with the wind.  If the wind wasn’t there, things would change quite a bit,” said a cheerful Federer, who broke Zemlja quickly with his lethal ground strokes to take a 3-1 lead in the first set.
Once in lead, the Swiss ace was all over Zemlja and it took him just 31 minutes to wrap up the first set on his third set point. Zemlja, ranked 116th, showed some guile in the second set and it allowed him to stay in the match until the seventh game. However, Federer broke Zemlja in the eighth and held his serve in the 10th to wrap up the set and the match.
Nadal, on the other hand, showed that he is getting a hang of his heavier racquet earlier than what one might have expected. The testimony to that fact was his flawless display of perfection and power that saw him win 33 of his 40 service points and saved the only break point he faced.
“I think I did almost everything okay. I think I hit good forehands, I went to the net a lot of times, but that’s important on my game. It’s something that we are trying to do more often.
“I think I’m returning better, than especially, the last part of the season, 2011. So that’s important, because at the beginning of the points a lot of times are the key. In general, I hit good returns, aggressive ones, good backhands. I think I played a complete match,” said Nadal, who broke Gremelmayr in the third and fifth games of the first set and in the first and third games in the second to seal the win.