Nicolas Almagro defeats compatriot Marcel Granollers

Nicolas Almagro has reached the Barcelona Open quarter-finals with a straight-sets win over fellow Spaniard Marcel Granollers.

It did not start well for the fourth seed as he was broken at the first time of asking, but he managed to battle back to level the scores with a break of his own.

He then broke again on Granollers's next serve before holding for a 4-1 lead and looked to be racing to the first set.

The rest of the set went with serve and despite a battle on his final service game of the set, Almagro went on to take it 6-3.

Set two was a much tighter affair with a couple of long service games from each player, until Almagro finally forced the break for 5-4.

He then just needed to serve for the match, which he managed after deuce despite a fluke backhand from Granollers that spun off the net and into court.