By Xinhua
Melbourne : Women’s world No. 1 Justine Henin of Belgium and three-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal cruised into the third round at Australian Open here Wednesday.
Top seed woman Henin defeated Russia’s Olga Poutchkova 6-1, 7-5 at the Rod Laver Arena. It took the Belgian only 22 minutes to seal the first set but the Russian challenger broke Henin at 1-1 and 5-3 in the second set. Henin fought her way back to break at 6-5 for the match.
“I played a good first set,” said Henin. “Then I lost a little bit of the intensity, a little bit of the rhythm on my serve.
“When she came back at 5-5, I understood it was time to push myself a little bit more.”
In the men’s encounter, second seed Spaniard Rafael Nadal made few mistakes as he stormed past Frenchman Florent Serra 6-0, 6-2, 6-2 in just 94 minutes. He produced 39 winners and hit nine aces to book a third round place.
The 22-year-old Spaniard was happy with his performance, which was better than in the last round. “I played much better and I started very good. Maybe the opponent was a little bit easier, so I can come to the match. I can feel better the ball,” he said.
Nadal will next face 28th seed Gilles Simon of France.
In other matches, unheralded Australian Casey Dellacqua stunned 15th seed Patty Schnyder of Switzerland 4-6, 7-5, 8-6 to set up a third round clash with 2006 Australian Open women’s singles champion Amelie Mauresmo, who overcame Russian Yaroslava Shvedova 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).