Rafael Nadal thrashes Leonardo Mayer in the second round – BNP Paribas Open 2012
World number two Rafael Nadal made an impressive comeback, as he outclassed 78th ranked Leonardo Mayer of Argentina in straight sets 6-1, 6-3 in the second round at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, USA on Sunday. The Spaniard made short work of his opponent, beating him in just an hour and 15 minutes.
Nadal was playing his first singles match after almost six weeks of lay off. The 10-time Grand Slam winner didn’t feature any event after losing in a thriller to the world number one, Novak Djokovic, in the Australian Open final.
The Spaniard came out firing in the match, claiming the first five games of the opening set to race away to a 5-0 lead. Mayer made some solid defence to hold his serve in the sixth and open his account. Nadal made no mistake in the next game to close it out at 6-1.
Nadal looked a bit rusty on the second serves, committing a couple of double faults and bagging just three of the six points on them. However, he was flawless on the first ones, as he did not lose a single point on them, grabbing all 13 of them. On the other hand, Mayer succeeded in winning only one point on his second serves.
The Argentinean competed better in the second set. Nadal snatched a break point in the third game and held his next serve to grab a 3-1 lead. Mayer was under pressure in the fifth and seventh games but managed to pass through the test, taking the score to 3-5. Nadal grabbed four straight points in the ninth game to capture the second set 6-3.
Expressing his happiness after the match, the left-hander said, “Very happy to be back in competition, that’s the first thing. This is a tournament that I love. I really enjoy playing this tournament. Always in my career, I had good success here. I played very good matches.”
The Spaniard added, “It’s nice to be back playing at the very good level. Winning is the most important thing. It’s not easy to be back after a while without competition, but I did really well. I started the match very focused, very aggressive. I’m very happy about almost everything.”
Nadal is drawn to play 26th seed, compatriot Marcel Granollers in the round of 32. Granollers rallied past German Tommy Haas in three sets 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 in the second round.
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