Somdev Devvarman known for his fighting spirit and appetite for long-drawn matches lived upto to his reputation, he put up a spirited fight against Rafael Nadal but the world number one eventually managed to tame the lion-hearted Indian in straight sets in the pre-quarterfinals of the ATP BNP Paribas Open here.

Somdev went down 5-7 4-6 but not before making the Spaniard work hard for every point in a contest that lasted close to two hours – the first set alone accounting for more than an hour. Somdev kept coming back and gave the number 1 seed a lot of trouble. First set gave quite a fright to Nadal fans when Somdev just didnt seem to go down after 5-5 but the world no 1 prevailed and eventually wrapped up the match.

The Indian sure has a lot of fight left in him for the future matches only some improvements in his skills are required to crack the top 50 rankings.