Despite an impatient performance, Milos Raonic through to meet Rafael Nadal in the Sony Open quarterfinals

It was almost as though Milos Raonic was already looking ahead to a potential showdown with world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, as he played lucky loser Benjamin Becker of Germany in the fourth round of the Sony Open in Miami.

Raonic was dominant early on, but had some lapses of form in the second set. It was not enough, though, to derail the 23-year-old Canadian, who defeated Becker 6-3, 6-4 and will indeed play Nadal Thursday.

Nadal made quick work of a compliant Fabio Fognini Tuesday night to keep up his end of the deal, dismissing him 6-2, 6-2 in just over an hour.

As in his third-round match, Raonic came out and served at a stratospherically high percentage in the first set, which came down to a single break point, one converted by Raonic when he led 4-3. He lost just one of 21 points on his serve overall.

But in the second, he struggled more. In fact, Becker ended up having more break-point opportunities (eight) than Raonic did (five). Unfortunately for the German veteran, he was unable to convert on any of them.

Becker had Raonic 15-40 on his serve at 2-3. Raonic saved the first with ace No. 9; the second with ace No. 10 on his second serve.

At 3-4 in the second set, Becker again had 15-40 on the Raonic serve. Raonic saved the fifth break point against him with an ace, and the second with another huge second serve, not an ace but unreturnable. He saved break point No. 6 with another ace, and break point No. 7 with another unreturnable serve.

That pretty much summed up his day, which ended with a total of 15 aces. But it was a little sloppy, which might explain the rather grim look on his face after it was over.

Against Nadal, he will have no such margin for error.

Raonic again wore the compression sleeve on his right arm, to protect an allergic reaction from the sun. He also had a long strip of tape up his right leg and a significant amount of kinesio tape on his back.

In his first matches back from an ankle injury in Indian Wells, Calif. two weeks ago, Raonic had a strip about half that length on the leg. By the end of the event, the strip was so short it couldn't be seen underneath his sock.

Toronto's Daniel Nestor, seeded No. 6 in the doubles event with Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic, will face the young American team of Ryan Harrison and Jack Sock in the doubles quarterfinals Wednesday.