Rafael Nadal [ Images ] hardly broke sweat to reach the semi-finals of the Mercedes [ Images ] 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 [ Images ] 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 [ Images ] 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.