Rafael Nadal [Images] hardly broke sweat to reach the semi-finals of the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart on Friday, beating Tomas Zib 6-2, 6-1 in Frankfurt.

The Spaniard's 32nd successive win on clay took just 70 minutes. The French Open champion will face Jarkko Nieminen in the last four, after the unseeded Finn beat Andreas Seppi of Italy [Images] 6-2, 6-3.

Second-seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko also had a breezy quarter-final win on Friday, seeing off 11th seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-2.

Davydenko will face Argentine third seed Gaston Gaudio, who won a baseline battle against countryman Mariano Zabaleta 6-4, 1-6, 6-2.

Nadal has been untouchable on the Stuttgart clay this week and the result looked a foregone conclusion from the first game, when Zib, the unseeded Czech, missed a simple volley to hand his opponent three break points.

Nadal took the first of them with a belting forehand and broke again for a 4-1 lead on his way to clinching the set in 38 minutes.

The 19-year-old grabbed his first break in the second set in game three, going down on one knee to whip a backhand winner across court on break-point.

Zib lost his serve twice more and Nadal raced to victory, hitting a wonderful backhand at full stretch on the run on his first match-point.

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