Rafael Nadal saves match point to down South Africa's Kevin Anderson

Spain's Rafael Nadal reached the quarter-finals of the Paris Masters indoors event after beating South Africa's Kevin Anderson in three sets.

The 14-time Grand Slam champion won a tight encounter 4-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2 to book a last eight duel with French Open champion Stan Wawrinka, who beat Serbia's Viktor Troicki 6-4, 7-5.

Nadal appeared to be on his way out before a telling forehand winner allowed him to save match point at 5-6 down in the second set tie-break.

Anderson, who served 20 aces, cracked in the final set as Nadal broke twice to notch his 58th match win of the year.

Nadal is now a perfect 3-0 in head-to-head meetings with Anderson on the ATP World Tour. He beat Anderson 6-2, 7-6 (8/6) at a Masters 1000 event in Canada in 2010, while he also prevailed 7-5, 6-1, 6-4 at this year’s Australian Open.

Results on the fifth day of the ATP Paris Masters on Thursday (x denotes seeded player):

Third round:

Novak Djokovic (SRB x1) bt Gilles Simon (FRA x14) 6-3, 7-5

Tomas Berdych (CZE x5) bt Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA x9) 6-3, 6-4

Stan Wawrinka (SUI x4) bt Viktor Troicki (SRB) 6-4, 7-5

Rafael Nadal (ESP x7) bt Kevin Anderson (RSA x11) 4-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2

David Ferrer (ESP x8) bt Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-4

John Isner (USA x13) bt Roger Federer (SUI x3) 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 7-6 (7/5)

Richard Gasquet (FRA x10) bt Kei Nishikori (JPN x6) 7-6 (7/3), 4-1 - retired

Andy Murray (GBR x2) bt David Goffin (BEL x16) 6-1, 6-0

Source: Sport24