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By Alison Wildey
LONDON, June 26 - 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.
"I had my usual doubts because I hardly had any matches to
practise (on grass)," second seed Nadal told reporters.
"I think I feel very comfortable on court, so I'm very happy
about my game today. But it's just the first round," said the
21-year-old who spent a few days off at home in Majorca after
losing in the quarter-finals of Queen's earlier this month.
He added that while he had not found the chilly, windy
weather difficult, his game was more suited to sunny conditions.
"It's better with the sun like last year. The ball, you can
feel a little bit more... With the sun, (the ball) is a little
bit slower, the ball is getting a little bit more topspin than
like this," the claycourt specialist said.
Fish, the world number 38 held out until the sixth game of
the first set when he put the ball out to give Nadal a break
point and then handed it to him with a double fault.
Nadal, 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 set up the decisive break with a forehand shot that
Hawk Eye showed was in by a whisker and he won the game for a
5-3 lead courtesy of another Fish double fault. The left-hander
then served for the match, sealing it with an ace.
Nadal, aiming to become only the third man in the Open era
to hold the Roland Garros and Wimbledon titles in the same year,
will face Austrian Werner Eschauer in the second round.