ROME, 10 May 2006 — Second seed Rafael Nadal began the defense of his Rome Masters title with a hard-fought 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 first round win over fellow Spaniard and practice partner Carlos Moya here yesterday.
Victory for Nadal, the reigning French champion, took his record over Moya to 3-2 and kept him on course to break the all-time record for consecutive claycourt victories, currently held by Guillermo Vilas.
World No. 2 Nadal now has 48 straight wins on his preferred surface, five less than Argentine Vilas whose record was set in 1977.
If he retains the title here, Nadal will equal Vilas’ record. Last beaten on clay in April, 2005 when he lost to Igor Andreev in the Valencia quarterfinals, Nadal next faces either British No. 1 Andy Murray or Italian Filippo Volandri.
Nadal admitted Moya, the 2004 Rome champion, was a very awkward opponent.
“The first set was easier than I thought, but the second set was much more difficult as he knows how to play me,” said the 19-year-old.
Sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia crushed Serbian Boris Pashanki 6-1, 6-4, but Argentina fared badly with eighth seed Gaston Gaudio and ninth seed Guillermo Coria both crashing out.
Gaudio lost to Belgium’s Xavier Malisse, while Coria, who was beaten here by Nadal in last year’s final, was sent packing by Spanish qualifier Ruben Ramirez.
Great Britain’s Tim Henman left the home crowd disappointed by defeating Italian Alessio Di Mauro, while two Czechs advanced with 14th seed Radek Stepanek overcoming Feliciano Lopez and Tomas Berdych beating Thailand’s Paradorn Srichaphan.
China’s Zheng Upsets Seedings
In Berlin, Zheng Jie, who won the second singles title of her career only two days ago, showed no signs of tiredness from her triumphant efforts when she went on to upset the seedings in her very next match.
The 22-year-old from Szechuan province reached the second round of the German Open yesterday after playing a magnificent second set full of wonderfully-varied ground strokes to overcome Natalie Dechy, the 13th seeded French woman.
Zheng’s 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 success followed her achievements last week in upsetting the seedings to reach the Estoril Open final where on Sunday she won the first all-Chinese final in the history of the WTA Tour, against Li Na.
Li retired from that with heat exhaustion before the start of the third set, but if the sturdy Zheng had suffered any energy loss from that encounter it certainly did not show.
After squeezing the first set against Dechy, she began to show not only greater weight of shot from the baseline, but more angles to open up the court on a slow clay surface and more tactical variety.
Dechy concentrated hard and fought as best she could, and the match could have turned around at any stage until Zheng made a crucial break of serve, after five successive holds, to reach 4-2 in the second set.
Zheng did that with a straight forehand drive winner which perfectly hugged Dechy’s backhand sideline, a Dechy double fault, a dismissive return of a modest Dechy second serve, and a fortunate net cord which dragged the ball short and had Dechy in two minds as to whether to come forward or stay back.
She did neither, netting a forehand which was less simple than it looked; when Dechy decisively abandoned caution and advanced to the net in the final game, Zheng hit a nerveless and uncompromising passing shot to finish it off.
It means that Zheng, currently 44 in the world, has a fine chance of overtaking her career highest of 42, especially of she can beat Anne Kremer, the Luxemborgian qualifier, in the second round. A short time later Li also reached the second round of the German Open in defiance of the seedings. However the Chinese number two was trailing by a set, 6-1, when Ana Ivanovic, the 12th seeded Serbian, retired with a thigh injury.
