Australian Open 2011: Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer move ahead
Following in the footsteps of Rafael Nadal, two of his compatriots sailed into round three at Melbourne Park on Thursday.
32nd seed, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez was the first of two to advance into the next round after his successful second round meeting with Argentine Eduardo Schwank.
Garcia-Lopez had kicked off his run at the Australian Open 2011 on Tuesday when he met German Michael Berrer for their first round clash. He beat him in four sets to move ahead in the tournament.
Meeting Schwank on Thursday, Lopez dominated the court for the most part of the match and succeeded in securing a straight sets victory over the Argentine.
Winning the first set 6-4, Lopez had to battle off a fighting Schwank in the second with the latter forcing the set into a tiebreaker. After a hard fought, neck-to-neck race, Lopez was able to win the tiebreak 10-8 before securing his straight sets victory
with a breadstick win in the third set.
Lopez will now meet either Illya Marchenko or fifth seed Andy Murray in the next round.
Joining his compatriots in the second round is also seventh seed David Ferrer. Putting in his ninth appearance at the event, Ferrer is yet to win a Grand Slam title. His career best at the event came in 2008 when he made it all the way to the quarterfinals
before losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic.
Coming fresh from a recent win at the Sydney event, Ferrer kicked off his Grand Slam run playing Jarkko Nieminen in the first round. He was the only seed amongst the top ten not to win their first round clash in straight sets. Securing a four set win over
the Finn, Ferrer set up a second round clash with American Michael Russell.
Opening serve, Ferrer secured the first set easily and continued his form to take the second set to go 2-0 up in set score. He had to fight hard in the next set, but managed to wrap the match up with a 7-5 victory in the third set.
Ferrer will now play Richard Berankis in the next round.
Berankis received a walkover in the third round after David Nalbandian retired during the match due to an illness. Berankis had won the first two sets 6-0, 6-1 and was leading the third set 2-0 when the Argentine withdrew.
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