Rafael Nadal reached the semi-finals of the Rio Open, showing no problems with a sore back in defeating Joao Sousa of Portugal 6-1 6-0 on Friday.
The No.1-ranked Nadal, in his first tournament since losing the Australian Open final, played his best match in Brazil and will face fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar in the semi-finals.
Andjuar ripped through Tommy Robredo of Spain 6-1 6-1.
In the other semi-final, second seed David Ferrer will meet unseeded Alexandr Dolgopolov.
Ferrer defeated Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil 4-6 6-3 6-3 and Dolgopolov of Ukraine advanced against third-seeded Fabio Fognini 6-1 6-1.
Ferrer has won 21 ATP singles title and will be the favourite to reach the final on Sunday against Nadal with 61 titles including 13 grand slams.
"I think I have improved in everything," Nadal said.
"I think I played a complete match. I had my best game of the tournament, and not just that but I played at a very high level. Really, I did things I wasn't able to do a few days ago. I moved better. I was more intense, more aggressive."
Asked about the back, Nadal backed off.
"We're not going to talk every day about the back," he said.
"I'm in the semi-finals."
Nadal tweaked his back warming up for the final in Melbourne, eventually losing the Australian OPen final to Stanislas Wawrinka in a match he was favoured to win. He took several weeks off and is using Rio to tune up for three months of clay-court play leading to the French Open.
