Rafa leads way into Toronto third round

Toronto : Top seed Rafael Nadal blew past patchy Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday to begin his quest for a fourth Canadian trophy at the Toronto Masters. The world number one Spaniard was untouchable as he schooled Paire for the fourth time without a loss, taking 74 minutes as he broke six times. Nadal won the event in 2005, 2008 and 2013.

“I was not at my 100 per cent today,” Nadal said. “It’s true that I did good work here the last five days, but at the same time it’s true that I didn’t work very hard at
home. “So the first match is an important victory for me, for my confidence. It’s important that I have another match tomorrow too. So just try to keep going. “I played a solid match, in the second set I had some troubles, but my return worked well. It was more about the mistakes from the baseline.”

The 32-year-old will bid for the quarter-finals here for the first time since 2015 when he plays Stan Wawrinka, who staged another fightback in three sets, beating Marton Fucsovics. Defending champion Alexander Zverev, seeded second and winner at the weekend in Washington, also advanced easily beating Bradley Klahn 6-4, 6-4. Former top-ranked Novak Djokovic, a four-time champion, sent Canadian Peter Polansky to a 6-3, 6-4 defeat.