Rafael Nadal of Spain serves to Jerzy Janowicz of Poland during the Montreal Masters at Uniprix Stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, yesterday.
Montreal: Rafael Nadal denied Jerzy Janowicz’s upset bid with a 7-6(6), 6-4 victory at the Montreal Masters yesterday.
Nadal survived a stern test from the big-serving Pole, who had the first set on his racquet at 6-5 and led by an early break in the second.
In the first set, Nadal had three set points to break at 5-4, but Janowicz held and would go on to surprise the Spaniard with an immediate break of serve.
The World No. 4 broke at 30/40 in the next game to send the set into a tie-break. At 5-6 in the tie-break, Janowicz fought off a fourth set point with a dead net cord backhand winner but was unable to stave off the fifth, with Nadal capturing the set in one hour and nine minutes.
Janowicz then grabbed an early 3-0 lead in the second set and was threatening to secure a double break but Nadal fought back, leveling at 4-4 before breaking again and serving out the match.
Nadal improved his hard court winning streak to 8-0 this year after winning the BNP Paribas Open, in Indian Wells, in March. He is also into his 57th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final.
Earlier, French Open champion Nadal, seeded fourth, showed no mercy to Canada’s Jesse Levine in a 6-2, 6-0 win as the Spaniard returned to action for the first time since his shock Wimbledon opening round loss to Steve Darcis six weeks ago.
Nadal saved three break points while breaking Levine five times in 71 minutes on court.
“The knee is not bothering me much,” said Nadal. “In the last couple of days, I was able to practice with no limitation, that is the most important thing.
“After seven weeks without playing tennis, you start a tournament on hard court, that is tougher for the body.
“You always feel a few things at the beginning. But hopefully those things will not limit my chances to play well.”
Wimbledon champion Andy Murray competed on hard courts for the first time in five months by reaching the third round of the Montreal Masters.
Second seed Murray shook off his post-Wimbledon cobwebs with a fighting 6-4, 7-6 (7/2) victory over Marcel Granollers.
The win -- his 13th in succession -- came just over a month after the Scot made history with the first British Wimbledon men’s singles title since 1936.
Murray’s victory puts him in a match against Latvian Ernests Gulbis, a 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 winner over Italian 13th seed Fabio Fognini.
“I was nervous beforehand, that was a good sign. I’m pretty ready to move forward and not think too much about Wimbledon and concentrate on the US Open,” Murray said.
“If I’d lost today, it would have just broken the momentum a little bit. The more matches I can get in the next few weeks, the better.”
Murray, the reigning US Open champion, had his teething troubles early against Granollers, who won the Kitzbuhel clay court title last weekend.
Murray won the opening set in just under an hour, despite 19 unforced errors to 18 for his opponent.
Murray then fought back from 2-5 down in the second set, saving a set point in the 10th game before finally guaranteeing a tiebreaker.
Trailing 0-2 in the decider, the world number two clicked into gear to run out the winner on the first of four match points as Granollers committed his final unforced error.
Murray, the champion in Canada in 2009 and 2010, now stands 35-5 for the season.
In a rain-interrupted match, third seed David Ferrer lost to Alex Bogomolov 6-2, 6-4 while sixth seed and weekend Washington champion Juan Martin del Potro struggled before finally overcoming Croatian Ivan Dodig 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.
The Argentine winner came from two breaks down in the final set to rescue the match and reach the third round.
Canadian Vasek Pospisil, who is ranked 71st in the world, followed up his defeat of John Isner in the first round by routing Czech Radek Stepanek 6-2, 6-4 in the second round.
He was joined in the third round by compatriot and world number 11 Milos Raonic, who produced a smooth victory over Mikhail Youzhny 6-4, 6-4.
Fifth seed Tomas Berdych beat Alexandr Dolgopolov of the Ukraine 6-3, 6-4, but Swiss eighth seed Stanislas Wawrinka fell to his French practice partner Benoit Paire 6-2, 7-6 (7/2).
Wawrinka was the only Swiss in the field after Roger Federer pulled out. AGENCIES
