Wed Jun 13 19:13:16 2007

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Nadal wins; Hewitt bows out in London

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London, England (Sports Network) - Top-seeded Rafael Nadal posted a second- round victory, while defending champion Lleyton Hewitt came up a loser Wednesday at The Artois Championships, a grass-court Wimbledon tune-up.

The reigning three-time French Open champion Nadal made a smooth transition to grass with a 6-4, 6-4 win against promising Argentine Juan Martin del Potro on Day 3 at The Queen's Club. The Spanish Nadal won 40-of-46 points on serve en route to victory.

The 2006 Wimbledon runner-up Nadal is fresh off his championship at Roland Garros, where he defeated the great Roger Federer in the final for a second straight year.

The sixth-seeded Hewitt, meanwhile, was stunned by big-serving French qualifier Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-2). The former world No. 1 and former Wimbledon champion Hewitt topped American James Blake in last year's Queen's Club finale and also captured this event back-to-back-to-back from 2000-02.

Three other stars avoided Day-3 upsets here, as third-seeded Chilean Fernando Gonzalez snuck past Serbian Janko Tipsarevic 7-6 (9-7), 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), fourth-seeded Serbian Novak Djokovic overcame American Robert Kendrick 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 and seventh-seeded Russian Dmitry Tursunov doused Canadian Frank Dancevic 7-5, 6-1. Gonzalez was January's Aussie Open runner-up to Federer, while Djokovic was a semifinal loser against Nadal at Roland Garros last week.

A mild upset came when Frenchman Nicolas Mahut topped 11th-seeded Swede Jonas Bjorkman 6-3, 6-7 (2-7), 6-3.

In other second-round action involving seeds, No. 12 Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu got past his countryman Michael Llodra 7-6 (7-4), retired; No. 14 Frenchman Arnaud Clement bested Aussie Chris Guccione 6-4, 6-4; and No. 15 American Robby Ginepri beat Frenchman Florent Serra 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

Additional second-round wins came for Belarusian Max Mirnyi, Croats Ivo Karlovic and wild card Marin Cilic and British wild card Alex Bogdanovic. The 2005 Queen's Club runner-up Karlovic overcame American qualifier Alex Kuznetsov 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-2).

A bout between eighth-seeded and former world No. 1 Marat Safin and two-time Queen's Club runner-up Sebastien Grosjean was suspended until Thursday. The Russian Safin was tied with the French Grosjean at 3-6, 6-4, 4-4 when play was halted for the day because of rain. Grosjean was the 2003 and 2004 runner-up here to American Andy Roddick.

The third round will be staged here on Thursday, including matches for Nadal, a second-seeded Roddick, Gonzalez and Djokovic. Nadal will encounter Mirnyi, while the three-time Queen's Club champion Roddick (2003-05) will take on Bogdanovic.