Rafa Nadal overcame his dislike of the blue clay to crush Russia's Nikolay Davydenko 6-2 6-2 in the second round of the Madrid Masters.
World number two makes light of controversial surface
Rafa Nadal overcame his dislike of the blue clay to crush Russia's Nikolay Davydenko 6-2 6-2 in the second round of the Madrid Masters.
Davydenko was broken twice in each set as the world number two came through in an hour and 20 minutes.
The serve was key to the outcome with Nadal sending down five aces, while his opponent was unable to garner a single break point.
Davydenko had six double faults as the pressure he was put under by Nadal eventually told.
"I played as good a match as I could in these strange circumstances. I'm happy with the way that I played," Nadal said.
"The situation is not easy. This is a fantastic tourney, one of the best in the world. My motivation is strong to play here. I had a fantastic result today, I played better than I expected."
Not easy
He added of the surface: "Conditions here are completely different than on the rest of the clay circuit. If this was in the summer or at the end of the season I would have nothing to say.
"I'm not against change but this is the wrong time of the calendar for it. I don't want to speak more on this."
Third seed Roger Federer was pushed all the way by Milos Raonic but came through in the end to claim a 4-6 7-5 7-6 victory in their second round clash.
Federer, who had not played since a surprise early loss to Andy Roddick in Miami in March, was by no means dominant in his first clay court match of the season but did enough to secure victory.
Raonic had seized on his solitary break point chance to take the first set, but Federer levelled matters in the second and then saved numerous break points in the third set before pouncing in the tie-break.
"It was pretty much a big struggle for me tonight but sometimes these kinds of wins can create good things," said the 16-time Grand Slam winner.
Elsewhere in second-round action, Marin Cilic of Croatia beat American John Isner 7-6 7-6.
Free points
Isner had 14 free points on serve to his opponent's seven but it was Cilic who had the best of tie-breaks - winning them 7-3 and 7-4 respectively.
Apart from eighth-seed Isner it was a good day for the top players on Wednesday with fifth seed David Ferrer overcoming Radek Stepanek 7-6 6-2.
Number four seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga also had a relatively easy route through as he defeated Ryan Harrison 6-2 7-6.
Twelfth seed Gael Monfils also came through 6-3 1-0 after opponent Igor Andreev came a cropper, while 16th-ranked Alexandr Dolgopolov defeated Italy's Andreas Seppi 6-7 7-6 6-3 in a battle lasting two hours and 14 minutes.
There were also second-round wins for ninth seed Gilles Simon, seventh seed Janko Tipsarevic and number 10 seed Juan Martin Del Potro.
