Hamburg: Top seed Rafael Nadal, bidding to rediscover some semblance of his former all-conquering formm recovered from losing the first set to beat fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 and reach the second round of Hamburg’s ATP tournament yesterday.
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Rafael Nadal’s summer excursion in Hamburg continued with another victory on Thursday, but the king of clay had his share of struggles.
Nadal has endured a tough year, losing his French Open title, getting knocked out in the second round at Wimbledon and seeing his ranking slump to 10, his lowest in a decade.
In the all-Spanish match, Nadal appeared to have trouble adjusting to clay and finding his timing.
Nadal broke the Czech’s serve in the opening game of the first set itself, only to be broken back.
He served another double fault to drop the game, but Vesely could not take advantage and Nadal cruised through the tiebreaker, winning the match when Vesely netted a backhand.
“I think I played a good match”, said the 29-year-old.
The match was played under the court’s canvas cover because of rain. Nadal improves his record on clay to 23-6 on the season, and sets up a quarterfinal with 5th-seeded Pablo Cuevas for Friday.
The 14-time grand slam victor enjoyed a solid second-round display against the risky Vesely, and began to show signs of his best tennis coming to the fore with some trademark whipped forehands.
In the day’s other match, fourth-seeded Italian Andreas Seppi battled past home hope Florian Mayer 4-6 6-2 6-3.
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There were straight-sets wins for Stephane Robert of France against Brazilian Joao Souza, and Turkey’s Marsel Ilhan against Russian Andrey Kuznetsov.
