THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Defending champion Rafael Nadal defeated Donald Young in their first meeting, and James Blake evened his record against familiar foe Carlos Moya in third-round matches Monday at the Pacific Life Open.
Nadal beat his 18-year-old American opponent 6-1, 6-3. Blake took a methodical 6-3, 6-4 victory over Moya.
Two-time women’s title winner Lindsay Davenport bounced back from a second-set loss to defeat Chan Yung-Jan 6-4, 5-7, 6-2. Ana Ivanovic, ranked No. 2 and the top seed since Justine Henin is skipping the tournament, advanced with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Tathiana Garbin.
The 21-year-old Nadal, second in the rankings to Roger Federer, benefited from Young’s inconsistency.
Although he was able to match Nadal stroke-for-stroke in some rallies and also hit several hard winners that brought roars from the crowd, Young’s inexperience was evident at other times.
After hitting a routine forehand out to end a long rally in the second set, Young slammed his racket to the ground in frustration. Soon after, he banged an overhead volley into the net, shaking his head at missing the easy shot.
Young won just seven of 17 points when he went to the net and Nadal was 6-of-7. Young made 38 unforced errors, 13 more than his Spanish opponent.
Although just some three years older than Young, three-time French Open champion Nadal obviously has a huge edge in experience.
“Well, I think he’s young,” Nadal said, describing how the match went. “I think he started very nervous. So I tried to score in the beginning, and he had some mistakes.”
Young agreed.
“Obviously I was really nervous,” he said. “It’s not the first time I played in front of a lot of people, but it’s the first time I played No. 2 in the world.”
Asked if his nerves had calmed down by the second set, Young said, “Yeah, losing 6-1, I think they go away. But overall, it was pretty decent.”
Young had scored the biggest victory of his career two days earlier at Indian Wells, beating No. 32 Feliciano Lopez in three sets.
The 28-year-old Blake, at No. 9 the highest-ranking U.S. player remaining in the tournament since No. 6 Andy Roddick was eliminated a day earlier, won for the sixth time in 12 career meetings against Moya, the former No. 1 now ranked 19th.
“We know each other’s games really well,” Blake said. “I’ve had a lot of tough matches with him. So I was really happy with getting through it in two sets, and either way, just getting the win was something I was proud of.”
Moya, a 31-year-old from Spain, had been the oldest player left in the men’s side of the tournament.
Davenport often seemed her own worst enemy in the match against Chan. The 31-year-old Davenport, a former No. 1, had to overcome 48 unforced errors, 20 more than her 18-year-old opponent from Taipei.
Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, the women’s No. 3 seed, romped to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Japan’s Ai Sugiyama.