The 24-year-old became the second-youngest player to reach the mark behind former world number one Bjorn Borg, who was 23 years and seven months.
Nadal will play David Ferrer in Sunday’s final after the fourth seed won the all-Spanish semifinal against Nicolas Almagro 6-3, 6-4. Spain’s two leading players met in last Sunday’s Monte Carlo Masters final when Nadal was victorious and he can go on to stretch his unbeaten run on clay to 34 matches if he collects his sixth Barcelona title in seven years.
Goerges upsets Stosur
Germany's Julia Goerges upset Australian world number seven Samantha Stosur 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 on Saturday to book a spot in the Stuttgart Grand Prix final. The first German finalist in Stuttgart since Anke Huber in 1996 will now play either world number one Caroline Wozniacki or Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska in her first final this year.
"To beat a player like Stosur is just unbelievable," the world number 32 said in a courtside interview. And to do that in front of a home crowd is even better. I just don't have the words to describe how happy I am," a beaming Goerges said as the crowd gave her a standing ovation.
The 22-year-old got off to a flying start, breaking Stosur to go 3-1 up in the first set, pinning her back with penetrating groundstrokes that have served her so well on the indoor clay court this week.
She clinched the first set with a beautifully executed drop shot on her first opportunity.
Stosur, last year's losing French Open finalist who skipped the Fed Cup last week to focus on her clay court preparations, improved in the second outing, stretching the German with her fine forehand to break and go 3-1 up.
Georges started piling up unforced errors and the Australian opened up a 4-1 lead before serving out the second set a little later.
The pair held serve early in the third set but Goerges got her chance to break and go 4-2 up.
Stosur briefly recovered with a break of her own but got broken back to drop 6-5 behind as the German unleashed a string of bludgeoning groundstrokes to claim the match at her first opportunity.
