Match report

Rafael Nadal © Tennistalk.com
ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament
1st round
2/20/08 1 2 Tot
es  Rafael Nadal 6 6 2
ru  Dmitry Tursunov 4 4 0
Dmitry Tursunov © Tennistalk.com

  • Nadal Cruises Past Tursunov in Rotterdam

    2/21/08 7:13 AM | Ricky Dimon
    Despite drawing a tough first round matchup with Dmitry Tursunov, Rafael Nadal is safely through to the second round of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament after comfortably dispatching the Russian in straight sets.

    Top-seeded Rafael Nadal rolled over Dmitry Tursunov 6-4, 6-4 on Wednesday night to advance to the second round of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

    While just one break in each set made all the difference, it was not really that close. Despite playing on indoor hard courts, a setting that would typically favor the Russian, Nadal lost just 12 points on serve the entire match. He did not face a single break point. Nadal certainly benefitted from the courts apparently playing a bit slow, but he still deserves a ton of credit for completely dominating in each of his 10 service games. The Spaniard only fired two aces and he put in just 67 percent (not outstanding by his standards) of his first offerings, but as usual he did an outstanding job of mixing up speed and placement to keep Tursunov off balance.

    The No. 2 player in the world secured breaks of serve late in the first set and early in the second, both of which proved to be enough. Nadal controlled play from the baseline throughout the match and that helped him seize the two service breaks, but Tursunov clearly did not do himself any favors with his serve. The Russian put in just 47 percent of his first balls and that proved costly, as Nadal won an impressive 52 percent (17 of 33) of the points when he got looks at his opponent’s second delivery.

    After Nadal broke in the second set, the outcome was simply a foregone conclusion. Tursunov never threatened to win back the necessary break of serve to level things in the second set, and Nadal cruised to a straight-set triumph.

    The tournament’s No. 1 seed advances to the second round where he will meet Andreas Seppi, who defeated Lleyton Hewitt on Wednesday afternoon in a third-set tiebreaker. Seppi saved one match point en route to the upset. Nadal holds a 4-0 edge in head-to-head meetings with the Italian.

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