Nadal struggles to make quarters of Queen's Club tennis

LONDON, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Top seed Rafael Nadal of Spain lost one set on his way to the quarterfinals of the Queen's Club ATP tournament on Thursday.

The Spaniard, who clinched his fourth consecutive French Open title at Roland Garros, beat 113th-ranked Japanese teenager Kei Nishikori 6-4, 3-6 and 6-3.

After a string of mistakes that handed Nishikori a break for a 5-3 lead and the second set, Nadal quickly regained the initiative in the third set to set up Friday's quarterfinal against Croatian Ivo Karlovic who out-gunned Chile's Fernando Gonzalez 6-3 and 7-5.

In other matches of the day, third seed Andy Roddick, the defending champion, needed just one set to get past fellow American Mardy Fish who retired injured after losing a tight first set 7-6.

Lleyton Hewitt of Australia came back from 1-4 down in the first set against Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu to win 6-4 and 6-4 and set up a quarterfinal against second seed Novak Djokovic who beat fellow Serb Janko Tipsarevic 2-6, 6-1 and 6-4.

Frenchman Richard Gasquet, a semi-finalist at Wimbledon last year, beat big-serving Croat Mario Ancic 7-6 and 6-4 while David Nalbandian beat last year's finalist Nicolas Mahut 6-4 and 6-1.