Taylor Dent Sets Up Clash With Nadal

Taylor Dent made light work of Spaniard Feliciano Lopez in the opening round of the Cincinnati masters as he dropped five games on the way to an impressive victory.

And he faces a Spaniard in the next round as he will face world number one Rafael Nadal, his opening match in the tournament, for a place in the third round.

Dent's serve was firing well as fired down twelve aces and won thirty two points from thirty eight on the first serve. Lopez on the other hand struggled with his serve and looked lackluster and out of ideas as Dent powered past him.

Dent broke the Spaniard three times on the way to a 6-3 6-2 victory whilst remaining unbroken himself, seeing of just four break point chances created by Lopez.

Speaking to the ATP after the match Dent said: "Luckily I feel like I have the tools to do that (beat Nadal)," said Dent. "I just have to do it consistently and at a very high level.

"Today I wasn't missing many returns, and I was getting a ton of free points on my serve," assessed the American. "I think at times he may have felt a little bit of pressure.

"He threw in some double faults and missed some first balls. It's tough when you're a big server and your opponent's putting a very, very high percentage of solid returns in play."

Sam Querrey, who picked up a title just a couple of weeks ago in Los Angeles, also enjoyed a straight forward win over Philipp Petzschner, who pushed Nadal at Wimbledon.

Querrey dropped just five games on his way to the 6-1 6-4 win as an error strewn game from the German saw the American comfortably in control as he needed just fifty one minutes to secure victory.

Querrey will now face David Ferrer in the second round as the Spaniard came through a tough match against the ever improving Alexandr Dolgopolov in three tough sets.

After dropping the opening set an error littered game from Dolgopolov played into the hands of Ferrer, seeded tenth in Cincinnati, as he broke four times from ten chances to see off the Ukrainian 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

There were also wins for Stanislas Wawrinka as he saw off Nicholas Almagro 6-3 6-3 while Jurgen Melzer dropped just five games on his way to a 6-1 6-4 win over Santiago Giraldo.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw