Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer Advance third round after straight set victory

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Rafael Nadal advanced to the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday without much trouble from his opponent or his injured right knee. Rival Roger Federer got through without picking up a racket.


Nadal beat German veteran Tommy Haas 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 in a 2 1/2-hour match, declaring that the twisted tendon in the heavily taped knee was not a concern.


Just before Federer was due on Hisense Arena, the Swiss player found out that his scheduled opponent, Germany's Andreas Beck, had a back injury and had to withdraw.


"Now, I'll just take it easy this afternoon and come out tomorrow and hit intensely, and then I'll be ready for the next match," said Federer, a four-time Australian Open winner.


Nadal, asked after his match if he would have appreciated the same kind of good fortune, was pragmatic.


"Before the day started, yes," he said, smiling. "Now that I've played and won, I'm happy. It was a positive match, but not that demanding. We didn't play four hours, five hours. Three sets, so it wasn't that tough."


Nadal and Federer could meet in the semifinals next week. Top-seeded Novak Djokovic and fourth-seeded Andy Murray, the threats from the other side of the draw, play their second-rounders Thursday.


Two of the women's title contenders, defending champion Kim Clijsters and No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, both won their second-round matches Wednesday on their way to a potential quarterfinal meeting.


French Open champion Li Na also advanced, defeating Olivia Rogowska of Australia 6-2, 6-2. She could meet Clijsters in the fourth round in a rematch of last year's final at Melbourne Park.


The important point, though, is that Nadal had established a blueprint for this year’s campaign. After the end of last season, when he became so tentative that he was relying on his opponents’ errors for the majority of his points, he has clearly decided to crank up his aggression, just as he did when winning three Grand Slam titles during his barnstorming 2010 season.
“My way has to be the first seven games,” he said afterwards. “I don’t know if it was the perfect match, but I started out playing fantastic. You cannot expect to win easy against nobody, and especially against Tommy Haas [because] he's a fantastic player.”
Perhaps it was fortunate for the Australian Open that Nadal did not get off court in a hurry, because this third day is a little lacking in star quality. The TV companies must have been cursing Andreas Beck, who withdrew with a bad back, because it meant no outing for his illustrious opponent Roger Federer.
In the matches that remained, eighth seed Mardy Fish became the first significant casualty in the men’s draw when he lost in straight sets to Alejandro Falla, the Colombian who is probably best known for taking Federer to a deciding set in the first round of the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.
Speaking afterwards, Fish expressed his exasperation at the repeated appearances of a trainer on court to treat Falla for cramp. “It's my responsibility to put it behind me,” he said, “but I'm a human being. I see that guy's called the trainer three, four times. It's hot, and I'm down two sets to love, and I'm looking for anything to sort of gain the momentum a little bit. I think it had a significant bearing on the third set, for sure.