Italian Open: Dominic Thiem beat Rafael Nadal to reach semi finals

Austria's Dominic Thiem dumped seven-times champion Rafael Nadal out of the Italian Open 6-4 6-3 to reach the semi-finals. Beaten twice by Nadal in the space of a month, in the Barcelona and Madrid Open finals, 

Thiem took his revenge by handing the 30-year old Spaniard a first clay court defeat of the season in Rome.



The upset, after one hour and 51 minutes, ended Nadal's 17-match unbeaten run on clay.

The Austrian will face either world number two Novak Djokovic or Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro, whose quarter-final was suspended till today after rain halted play with the Serb leading del Potro 6-1 1-2.