Nadal safely on his way at Wimbledon
Triple French Open champion Rafael Nadal began his bid to conquer Wimbledon with a 6-3 7-6 6-3 victory over American Mardy Fish on Tuesday.
Fish, who has now failed to beat the powerful Spaniard in all four of their meetings, ultimately had no answer to Nadal's brutal groundstrokes, relying on his serve to get points on the board, with 17 aces in the match.
The world No.38 held out until the sixth game of the first set when he put the ball out to give second seed Nadal a break point and then handed it to him with a double fault.
Nadal, the beaten finalist at Wimbledon last year, found Fish harder to crack in the second set, wasting his two break points before taking the tiebreak 7-4 when the American sent a forehand long.
Fighting to the end, Fish had two break points himself in the fifth game of the third set but was unable to convert them.
Nadal broke for 5-3 courtesy of another Fish double fault and then served for the match, sealing it with an ace.
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