Nadal, Fish, and Murray Move On In Cincinnati

Written by: Global Chick on 18th August 2011

Nadal, Fish, and Murray Move On In Cincinnati

Rafael Nadal of Spain returns the ball to his compatriot David Ferrer during their final match at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters tennis tournament in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, 17 April 2011. Nadal won 6-4 and 7-5. EPA/CHRISTOPHE KARABA |

World No. 2 Rafael Nadal advanced into the third round at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati defeating French qualifier Julien Benneteau 6-4 7-5.

Nadal, who lost in the first round last week at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 in Montréal to Ivan Dodig said, “The moments that I spend one week ago in Montréal when I lost the match, serving for the match, always the confidence goes down a little bit after one match like that.”

World No. 21 Fernando Verdasco will be Rafa’s next opponent. The pair have played eleven times and Nadal has never lost to Verdasco. Their last meeting took place at the US Open in 2010, Nadal came through in three straight sets. Fernando Verdasco beat Michael Llodra of France 6-4 6-4 in the second round.

Number seven seed American Mardy Fish flew through to the third round after a 6-2 6-0 win over former world number three Nikolay Davydenko. Mardy is looking to win his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Event this week. He reached the final last week in Canada but was defeated by Novak Djokovic.

Fish will battle with France’s Richard Gasquet for a place in the quarterfinals. The Frenchman dismissed South African Kevin Anderson 7-6 (4) 6-4.

Brit Andy Murray started this week better than in Montréal last week when he lost to Kevin Anderson in his first round. It wasn’t an easy task for Murray today having to face David Nalbandian of Argentina. Nalbandian was once ranked number three in the world but is currently placed No. 66.

Murray was struggling a bit at the beginning of the match when he got broken early. The Brit broke back at 3-3, a few more service breaks followed by both players but it was Murray who closed out the first set 6-4. The second set was pretty much one sided and Murray closed the match with a 6-1 win.

Next up for the World No. 4 is Alex Bogomolov Jr who upset Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3 6-4. Bogomolov had to go through qualifying this week to earn a spot in the main draw.

Spaniard David Ferrer had a struggle to get past Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. The World No. 6 had a 4-6 6-1 7-5 win in his first ever match against the Bulgarian. Ferrer will play the winner of Janko Tipsarevic and Gilles Simon.