Mason, Ohio – Former world No. 1 Rafael Nadal and former round winners Wednesday at the $2.43 million Western & Southern Open, an ATP Masters and U.S. Open Series event.
The second-seeded Nadal handled French qualifier Julien Benneteau 6-4, 7-5, while a fourth-seeded Murray mauled oft-injured former top-five star David Nalbandian of Argentina 6-4, 6-1 on the hardcourts at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. Nadal and Murray were a pair of shocking early losers last week in Montreal.
Murray captured this Masters tournament back in 2008.
Meanwhile, sixth-seeded Frenchman Gael Monfils topped Croat Ivan Dodig 4-6, 6-3, 4-0, retired, and seventh-seeded American Mardy Fish popped nine aces and leveled former top-five Russian Nikolay Davydenko 6-0, 6-2 in 62 minutes. Fish was last week's Masters runner-up to Novak Djokovic in Montreal and lost to Swiss icon Roger Federer in last year's finale here in suburban Cincinnati.
Ninth-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro held off 6-foot-10 Croat Ivo Karlovic 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7-2) to reach the round of 16.
Additional second-round wins came for Czech qualifier Radek Stepanek, Spaniard Fernando Verdasco and German Philipp Kohlschreiber. Stepanek, a surprise titlist in Washington, D.C. two weeks ago, defeated Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) on Day 4 here.
This week's winner will collect $496,000.
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