There were some hopes that Jeremy Chardy, who upset Juan Martin del Potro, could make a match of it against Rafael Nadal, who has not had that much challenge in his first tournament back since Wimbledon.

But it was not to be.

Chardy’s game was all over the place, as he struggled to take control of the points and keep the ball in play.  Even when he had break points, he was unable to play a good point to make Nadal work.  By contrast, Rafa merely had to play solid tennis.  He did not need to stretch himself to play well, though, compared to the way he had been playing, he is starting to solidify his play and not make nearly as many errors.

Rafa broke twice in each of two sets.  Chardy had chances to break in two separate games, but Rafa clung tough.  Final score: 62 62.

One reason Vina del Mar is good for Rafa is the lack of big-time competition.  Rafa would not consider coming back if he couldn’t beat players ranked outside the top 20.  Perhaps it could have been interesting if Juan Monaco had made it to the finals, but he lost right away, and has been relegated to playing doubles with Rafa.  Instead he’ll face a different Argentine, Horatio Zeballos, who rarely goes deep in tournaments.  Zeballos required a lot of work to close the match out over higher ranked Carlos Berlocq.  He twice broke, but could not hold serve to win the match.  Instead, he had to win in a tiebreak.

Rafa will be strongly favored to beat Zeballos in the final.