Top three seeds advance, Berdych makes early exit
22/10/2008 17:27
Top seed and two-time defending champion Roger Federer fought through a
testing opening round encounter, beating Bobby Reynolds 6-3, 6-7 (6-8), 6-3 at
the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in Basel yesterday evening.
The Swiss fired 17
aces and converted two of 12 break points as he edged past the American in one
hour 50 minutes.
The Basel native improved to a 25-6 record at his home
event. He won back-to-back titles in 2006 and last year.
Already assured of
his place at Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai, Federer has a 59-13 match record on
the season, highlighted by winning his 13th Grand Slam title at the US Open and
triumphing at Estoril and Halle. The World No. 2 also finished runner-up at
Roland Garros and Wimbledon, losing to Rafael Nadal on both
occasions.
Argentine second seed David Nalbandian enjoyed smooth progress
into the second round, dismissing Spaniard Albert Montanes 6-4, 6-2.
The
26-year-old Nalbandian improved to a 19-4 event record. He captured the title on
his debut in 2004, with victory over Fernando Gonzalez in the final, and has
twice finished as runner-up in 2003.
Elsewhere, seventh-seeded Czech Tomas
Berdych suffered a first round 6-4, 7-5 loss to Italian Simone Bolelli. Despite
firing 11 aces World No. 22 Berdych, who was a quarterfinalist last year, was
broken once in each set by Bolelli, who recorded his first victory in three
meetings over the recent Tokyo champion after one hour 36 minutes.
The
23-year-old Bolelli, currently a career-high No. 42 in the world rankings,
improved to a 27-28 match record. The Budrio resident reached his first ATP
final at Munich on clay in April.
Tennis Masters Cup contender Juan Martin
del Potro strengthened his qualification chances with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Swiss
qualifier George Bastl. The 20-year-old del Potro, who last week reached his
first Masters Series quarterfinal in Madrid, began the week at No.8 in the 2008
Race with 337 points; there are three places remaining at the circuit finale in
Shanghai.
The Tandil resident had a blistering summer, clinching four
straight titles at Stuttgart, Kitzbuhel, Los Angeles and Washington before
making a US Open quarterfinal exit. Earlier this month he finished runner-up at
Tokyo and cracked the top 10 of world rankings at No. 9 on October 6.
German
Philipp Kohlschreiber defeated compatriot Denis Gremelmayr 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) to
advance to a second round meeting with sixth-seeded Russian Igor
Andreev.
Xinhua
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