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Nadal hat-trick bid gains momentum

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PARIS, France -- Two-times champion Rafael Nadal showed no mercy on Italian qualifier Flavio Cipolla, sweeping him aside 6-2 6-1 6-4 to reach the third round of the French Open on Thursday.

World number two Nadal, attempting to become the first man to win three successive titles at Roland Garros since Bjorn Borg in 1980, was in control straight away, opening up a 3-0 lead in the first set.

Leading 5-1, the Spaniard was then broken but he underlined his determination by capturing Cipolla's serve immediately to take the set in 34 minutes

The second set was even more one-sided, Nadal going 3-1 up, breaking Cipolla again in the sixth game before serving for the set, which he took courtesy of an astute dropshot.

The 20-year-old Nadal, whose 81-match streak on clay was ended by Roger Federer in the Hamburg final earlier this month, slowed down a bit after an early break but did enough to stay in control until he earned three match points.

A super cross-court forehand winner on the first ended world number 227 Cipolla's suffering in a one-sided contest that laster under two hours.

"I was not able to play my best tennis but it was a good warmup", Nadal told reporters.

The powerful left-hander, favored to challenge world number one Federer in the June 10 final, will next meet fellow Spaniard Albert Montanes or Latvia's Ernests Gulbis.

"I'm playing better and better every day and I'll fight every day a bit more", Nadal said. "There's only one way you can eliminate pressure and that's by playing well."

Nadal is headed for a fourth round clash with Lleyton Hewitt who staged a typical fightback from two sets down to beat former champion Gaston Gaudio of Argentina to advance to the third round.

The Australian 14th seed looked headed for an early exit but found the inspiration to recover for a 4-6 3-6 6-2 6-4 6-2 win and a last 32 meeting with 20th-ranked Finn Jarkko Nieminen.

It was the fourth time in his nine-year professional career that former world number one Hewitt had recovered from a two-sets deficit as he shoved Gaudio to his earliest exit from Roland Garros since 2001.

Prowess

Gaudio, who beat compatriot Guillermo Coria in the 2004 final, has endured a frustrating season but showed his prowess on clay by outsmarting Hewitt in the early stages of the match.

He took the first set in 62 minutes with Hewitt unable to convert any of his four break points and followed up with the second as he closed on victory.

But Hewitt is a redoubtable battler and by cutting back unforced errors he took the third with breaks in the third and seventh games.

With the bit between his teeth, Hewitt leveled affairs after nearly three hours on court and there was only one winner thereafter as Gaudio's confidence waned.

Hewitt broke in the first and fifth games of the decider and took the match with a love service game when Gaudio hit a lazy, tired forehand long.

Serbian sixth seed Novak Djokovic, tipped to challenge the Federer-Nadal monopoly, breezed past French qualifier Laurent Recouderc 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-1.

"Everybody expects me to be one of the guys who can actually hurt the best two players in the world and I'm aware of that," Djokovic, who beat Nadal on the way to winning the Miami Masters series, told reporters.

"There's a lot of expectation and pressure but I'm trying not to think about it too much."

Former Australian Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis, the 16th seeded Cypriot, also made the third round with a straight sets triumph over Denmark's Kristian Pless.

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