Nadal, Federer into 3rd round; Fish out at Aussie Open

Published November 20, 2014

Former champions Rafael Nadal and - one of seeded American Mardy Fish, however, went by way of the upset at the first Grand Slam event of the year.

Nadal, the No. 2 seed, fought off eight aces and beat error-prone German Tommy Haas 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, while the third-seeded Federer moved on when his opponent, German Andreas Beck, pulled out of their match with a back injury.

Seventh-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych and No. 11 seed Juan Martin del Potro joined Nadal in the win column on Day 3.

The 16-time Grand Slam titlist Federer, a four-time Aussie Open champion, said Beck greeted him in the locker room and said he was in a lot of pain after his first-round match Monday against Frenchman Eric Prodon.

"I didn't know anything about it. It came as a surprise," Federer said. "He said he had a lot of painkillers and pain in the last match. I guess it's the smart decision for him to take."

Federer, who last won this major event two years ago, was coming off a win over Russian Alexander Kudryavtsev on Monday.

The iconic Swiss great said he felt bad for the fans who came out to watch his match and was looking forward to working off the unused energy in practice on Thursday.

"I'll just relax this afternoon and have an intense hit tomorrow," Federer said.

The 10-time major champion Nadal, after beating American Alex Kuznetsov in the first round, notched 36 winners in his match against the former world No. 2 Haas, who committed 38 unforced errors. Nadal, who defeated Federer in the 2009 finale here and last year's French Open final, converted six of his 10 break-point opportunities en route to victory.

Fish was knocked off in the first big men's upset of the tournament, falling in straight sets to Colombian Alejandro Falla 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 7-6 (8-6). The first and third sets both took over an hour to play. Fish was done in by 58 unforced errors, but didn't make any excuses.

"He's a good player," Fish said.

The former Wimbledon runner-up Berdych beat diminutive Belgian Olivier Rochus 6-1, 6-0, 7-6 (7-4) and the former U.S. Open winner del Potro topped Slovenian Blaz Kavcic 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 during Wednesday's 16-match schedule on the men's side.

Tenth-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro came from behind to beat promising Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-0, while 13th-seeded Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov (13) overcame German Tobias Kamke 4-6, 6-1, 6-1, 3-6, 8-6, and 16th-seeded massive-serving American John Isner edged out former top-five star and former Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian in a marathon bout, 4-6, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5), 10-8.

In other second-round action involving seeds, No. 18 Feliciano Lopez of Spain handled Italian Flavio Cipolla 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, No. 21 Swiss Stan Wawrinka downed former Aussie Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 in Wednesday's nightcap and No. 30 South African Kevin Anderson held off Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.

Meanwhile, rising Aussie favorite Bernard Tomic came back to defeat on-the- mend American Sam Querrey 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 and Slovak Lukas Lacko doused American Donald Young 6-3, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

Other second-round winners were 6-foot-10 Croat Ivo Karlovic, German Philipp Kohlschreiber and Taipei's Yen-Hsun Lu.

URL

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