Rafael Nadal advances to the Doha quarterfinals with a three-set win over Tobias Kamke on Wednesday. Nadal is joined there by Ernests Gulbis, who held off Lukasz Kubot in three sets.

(1) Rafael Nadal d. Tobias Kamke 6-3, 6-7(3), 6-3

Nadal earned his second win of the season on the first day of 2014, but not before an entertaining fight. The top-seeded Spaniard scraped past Kamke in two hours and 25 minutes to set up a quarterfinal showdown against Ernests Gulbis. A back-and-forth affair saw Kamke give away a second-set break before recovering to dominate the ensuing tiebreaker. Nonetheless, Nadal restored order to the proceedings by breaking once in the third while facing no break points on his own serve.

“I spent a lot of time on court and I won,” the world No. 1 noted. “That’s the very important thing. I think I played much better today than yesterday…