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Stephen Pond/EMPICS Sport
Easy As They Come

Not so sweet! Imperious Nadal beats minnow as Murray overcomes battling Kamke

Rafael Nadal ensured his passage to the third round at Wimbledon with a routine straight sets win over American Ryan Sweeting.

Updated at 19.33

It was all too easy for Rafael Nadal on Wednesday evening as he closed out a 6-3 6-2 6-4 win over Ryan Sweeting at Wimbledon, while Andy Murray also beat Tobias Kamke of Germany in straight sets, winning 6-3 6-3 7-5.

Nadal took a while to get going in his opener against Michael Russell but was giving nothing away against Sweeting, breaking in the fourth game of the first set.

Sweeting had a chance to break in the next game but pounded a close-range forehand far beyond the baseline, leaving Nadal with a drop shot to pull clear at 4-1.

The American held his serve twice more but had no answer to the fearsome forehand of Nadal, and the French Open champion had no trouble in serving out the set.

The 25-year-old was not in any mood to be charitable and broke Sweeting in the first game of the second set, and made it two breaks with a smash in the third. At that point it was 4-0 and the world number 69 was struggling to get any momentum going in his game.

He did manage to hold his serve twice but the damage was done, and Nadal went 2-0 up.

Although Andy Murray’s match was starting over on court number one, the Madrid native managed to keep the focus of the Centre Court crowd with an awesome display of hitting.

Despite offering more of a challenge in the third set, the winner was never in doubt. Nadal’s more aggressive and finely tuned approach paid dividends and he closed out the match by taking the third set 6-4.

Similarly, there were few surprises for British No 1 Andy Murray, who also enjoyed a relatively comfortable victory.

Murray did not drop his serve once against Kamke and was rarely forced out of second gear.

He took the first two sets both by a scoreline of 6-3, before the world no 83 improved his performance slightly in the third set.

Kamke put up a decent fight towards the end, but eventually dropped his serve in the penultimate game, allowing the Scot to cruise to victory as he served for the match.

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