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Back on his favourite surface, Rafael Nadal showed no lingering effects of a recent injury as he breezed into the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters on Wednesday with a 6-1, 6-1 win against Roberto Bautista Agut.
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MONACO — Back on his favourite surface, Rafael Nadal showed no lingering effects of a recent injury as he breezed into the third round of the Monte-Carlo Masters on Wednesday with a 6-1, 6-1 win against Roberto Bautista Agut.
Nadal was making his season debut on clay and playing his first match since suffering a knee injury at Indian Wells one month ago , but the defending champion looked sharp from the start and secured an early break of serve for 2-0.
Aside from having to save five break points across two games — at 0-40 down in the fourth game and at 15-40 in the sixth– Nadal was otherwise untroubled by his Spanish countryman. The 17-time Grand Slam champion converted his first match point when he met his opponent’s strong forehand with a crisp volley at the net.
Nadal is looking to win the clay-court tournament for a record-extending 12th time and next plays Grigor Dimitrov, whom he has beaten 11 times in 12 matches. One of Nadal’s wins against the unseeded Bulgarian was in last year’s semifinal.
Earlier, German Alexander Zverev defeated Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-4.
The third-seeded Zverev made 75 per cent of his first serves, compared to 52 per cent for Auger-Aliassime. Zverev also held a 6-2 advantage in service breaks.
No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas, No. 10 Daniil Medvedev, and No. 13 Fabio Fognini also advanced to the third round Wednesday. But No. 5 Kei Nishikori, who lost to Nadal in last year’s final, was beaten by Pierre-Hugues Herbert 7-5, 6-4.
Tsitsipas beat Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3, 7-5 and next faces Medvedev. The Russian beat Radu Albot 6-1, 6-2, while Fognini had a walkover after Gilles Simon pulled out with a back injury and next takes on Zverev.
There were also second-round wins for Dimitrov, Taylor Fritz and Cameron Norrie.
Fritz won 6-4, 6-2 against Diego Schwartzman and the 21-year-old American next plays top-ranked Novak Djokovic .
Norrie beat Marton Fucsovics 7-6 (3), 6-3 and Dimitrov won 7-6 (2), 6-4 against Jan-Lennard Struff.