Rafael Nadal swept previous Leo Borg, son of tennis nice Bjorn Borg, to advance to the second spherical of the Bastad Open on Tuesday as he builds in direction of the Paris Olympics.
It was Nadal’s first singles match for the reason that 38-year-old fell within the opening spherical at Roland Garros on Could 27, and he eased to a 6-3, 6-4 win in moist situations.
Each Nadal and the 21-year-old Borg, at the moment ranked 461 on this planet, have been wild card entries to the Swedish clay-court match.
Regardless of an early scare with the previous world primary slipping on the moist white line, Nadal broke for 3-1, hitting 4 aces to take the primary set in 43 minutes.
An instantaneous break gave the Spaniard a foothold within the second, sealing the match on his second match level after 1hr 25min on courtroom for his eighth ATP tour match win this season.
“It’s good, I’m lastly defending my title,” joked Nadal, who has not performed in Bastad since profitable the title aged 19 in 2005.
“I haven’t been enjoying numerous tennis in the previous couple of months.
“The emotions are nice, enjoying on entrance of a full crowd means loads to me and fortunate to have been in a position to play with out rain.
“Even within the more durable moments, I’ve been in a position to preserve going with the assistance of the crew, however in fact the followers have a huge effect on that. They provide me wonderful vitality.”
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The 22-time Grand Slam winner praised his rival, the son of the long-retired former world primary Bjorn Borg, now 68.
“It’s an enormous honour to play towards the son of one of many largest legends within the historical past of our sport,” stated Nadal.
“I feel he performed fairly effectively, he has an amazing future in entrance. I want him all the easiest.”
Nadal will subsequent play fifth seed Cameron Norrie within the second spherical after the British participant beat Slovak Jozef Kovalik 7-6 (7/4), 6-4.
Nadal skipped Wimbledon to give attention to the Olympics which might be performed at Roland Garros the place he received 14 French Open titles.
On Monday, Nadal additionally teamed up with Casper Ruud for a doubles win on clay in Bastad two weeks forward of the Paris Video games.
Prime seed Andrey Rublev begins his marketing campaign on Wednesday towards 121st-ranked Thiago Tirante of Argentina.