Nervous Nadal on hold as weather cancels Queen's play

By Bill Scott Jun 13, 2006, 18:58 GMT

London - Mardy Fish will have to wait a day before putting Rafael Nadal to his first grass-court test of the season after rain forced cancellation of matches at the Stella Artois Championship Tuesday.

The unseeded Fish, ranked 86th and with a Challenger trophy from Surbiton last week firmly in his possession, rolled over British wild card Jamie Baker 6-1, 6-3 and into a clash with the top seed.

Nadal was to have played doubles with Feliciano Lopez, but that match also never got on court.

Instead, the world number 2 napped away a lazy afternoon, sleeping for two hours on a couch in the cramped and busy player lounge at the west London club.

Spain's newly crowned double French Open champion was set to dive into his grass campaign just hours after defeating Roger Federer for the title in Paris on clay.

After arriving late Monday by Eurostar train, Nadal had an evening hit to get used to conditions. 'I want to practice,' said the Spaniard. 'I want to feel the grass. But my legs felt very tired on court.'

Others hit by the weather bad luck included three-time champion Andy Roddick, and 2003 Wimbledon finalist Mark Philippoussis.

Roddick was opening his campaign for a fourth straight title against Canadian Frank Dancevic, a qualifier ranked 127th. Philippoussis was playung South African Wesley Moodie.

Fifth seed James Blake got through before the rain as he began his clay-court season with a 7-5, 6-1 dismissal of compatriot Justin Gimelstob.

Victory put Blake into the third round after the first-round byes given to the top eight seeds.

Blake, a career-high seventh in the world, owns two titles this season. He reached the third round at Queen's a year ago and lost a grass final in Newport in 2002.

The 15th-seeded California-based Russian Dmitry Tursunov, whose application a decade ago for American citizenship has so far brought nil results, advanced into the second round over Brit Alex Bogdanovic 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.

Thai Paradorn Srichaphan, seeded 16th, began resurrecting his season after seven losses on clay, winning on grass 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) against Belgian Dick Norman.

Nicolas Mahut put out fellow Frenchman and Roland Garros quarter-finalist Julien Benneteau 6-4, 6-1.

Briton Andy Murray, who made his breakthrough at Queen's a year ago, lost his first set to Serb Janko Tipsarevic 7-6 (7-3), but led the second 5-2.