Tennis

Nadal safely through against Fish

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-06-27 08:42

Triple French Open champion Rafael Nadal began his bid to conquer Wimbledon with a 6-3 7-6 6-3 victory over American Mardy Fish on Tuesday.

Fish, who has now failed to beat the powerful Spaniard in all four of their meetings, ultimately had no answer to Nadal's brutal groundstrokes, relying on his serve to get points on the board, with 17 aces in the match.

"I had my usual doubts because I hardly had any matches to practise (on grass)," second seed Nadal told reporters.

"I think I feel very comfortable on court, so I'm very happy about my game today. But it's just the first round," said the 21-year-old who spent a few days off at home in Majorca after losing in the quarter-finals of Queen's earlier this month.

He added that while he had not found the chilly, windy weather difficult, his game was more suited to sunny conditions.

"It's better with the sun like last year. The ball, you can feel a little bit more... With the sun, (the ball) is a little bit slower, the ball is getting a little bit more topspin than like this," the claycourt specialist said.

Fish, the world number 38 held out until the sixth game of the first set when he put the ball out to give Nadal a break point and then handed it to him with a double fault.

Nadal, beaten finalist at Wimbledon last year, found Fish harder to crack in the second set, wasting his two break points before taking the tiebreak 7-4 when the American sent a forehand long.

Fighting to the end, Fish had two break points himself in the fifth game of the third set but was unable to convert them.

Nadal set up the decisive break with a forehand shot that Hawk Eye showed was in by a whisker and he won the game for a 5-3 lead courtesy of another Fish double fault. The left-hander then served for the match, sealing it with an ace.

Nadal, aiming to become only the third man in the Open era to hold the Roland Garros and Wimbledon titles in the same year, will face Austrian Werner Eschauer in the second round.