Hamburg: Rafael Nadal spoiled the birthday of Andy Murray to reach the quarterfinals of the Hamburg Masters along with the other top stars Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

The second-ranked Spaniard Nadal had no presents for Murray on Thursday as he sent the 15th-seeded Scot packing on his 21st birthday, 6-3, 6-2.

Nadal left Murray no chance, firing 23 winners to Murray's 11 and booking six of the last seven games to win in 1:17 hours. He showed no more signs of a foot blister which sent him crashing in the second round in Rome.

Nadal now runs into his former mentor and countryman Carlos Moya. The 11th seed beat Russia's Marat Safin 6-2, 6-7 (3-7), 6-1 in a duel of former world number one players.

Earlier, World No. 1 Federer routed Sweden's Robin Soderling, 6-3, 6-2 to remain on course towards a fifth Hamburg title.

Federer took 63 minutes to raise his perfect career record against the 48th-ranked Soderling to 6-0. The Swiss player fired 24 winners and had just 10 unforced errors. Soderling, by contrast, managed only 12 winners and had 24 errors.

In the quarters, Federer meets 28th-ranked Fernando Verdasco, who avenged a recent Valencia defeat against fifth-seeded David Ferrer by winning the Spanish duel, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.

The third-seeded Djokovic survived a dozen aces to beat Croatian Ivo Karlovic, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 in 1 hour 37 minutes.

In an other game, Djokovic and Karlovic traded breaks early on before the in-form Serb took the opener in the tie-break with six unanswered points. He then got the deciding break for 4-2 and served out the match in the ninth game, wrapping up matters with a service winner.

Djokovic is the hottest player of the year with three titles: the Australian Open and the Indian Wells and Rome Masters. He next meets unseeded Albert Montanes of Spain, who ousted Serb Janko Tipsarevic, 6-2, 6-1.

There was also local joy when Nicolas Kiefer became the first German in the Hamburg quarters in nine years with a 7-5, 6-3 upset over fourth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia.

Kiefer, meanwhile, became the first German since Tommy Haas to make the quarters in an intense duel with Davydenko which lasted 1:53 hours, his best result of the year.

Kiefer survived a break point at 1-1 in the second set and got the decisive break for 5-3 when Davydenko netted a forehand. He wrapped up the big win on first match point on another error from Davydenko and now meets Italian Andreas Seppi, a 6-0, 6-3 winner over 12th-seeded Argentine Juan Monaco.

Source : IANS