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Rafael Nadal bounces back

Rafael Nadal's knees showed no signs of injury as he beat Marcos Baghdatis 6-4, 6-4 on Wednesday in his opening match at the Madrid Masters.

The second-ranked Spaniard, who hasn't played since the US Open due to his ailing joints, broke Baghdatis' serve on consecutive occasions in the first set. He then served out the win after breaking Baghdatis for the final time in the ninth game of the second set.

"You never know how it's going to be until you step out on the court and I had a good feeling when I did," Nadal said. "I tried to play with a little more aggressiveness and intention and it worked. I hit the ball well, it sounded good coming off the racket."

Novak Djokovic saved all 10 break points before rallying to beat Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-7 (7), 6-3, 6-3 in his opener.

The third-seeded Serb converted three breaks in the final two sets to win it after the 29th-ranked Verdasco finally took the first set tiebreaker on his fourth try.

"Every time we've played, it's been a difficult match," said Djokovic, who is now 2-2 against Verdasco.

Djokovic, who won his fifth title of the season in Vienna on Sunday, will play another Spaniard in Juan Carlos Ferrero, who upset 14th-seeded Carlos Moya 7-6 (2), 6-4.

"He has the fast game, he likes to be in control, to be aggressive as I like as well. Obviously, he has a lot of supporters," Djokovic said.

Nadal, the 2005 champion, will face Andy Murray in the last 16. The 17th-ranked Briton stretched Nadal to five sets in their only other meeting at the same stage of the Australian Open in January.

"He's playing at a high level right now," Nadal said. "If Andy didn't have an [injury problem], he would be [in the top-six] in the world. He's come back very well after the injury. I'm going to have a very tough match tomorrow."

In all, eight seeded players lost on Wednesday, a day after two others also fell out.

Sixth-seeded James Blake made it four trips to Madrid without a win after losing 6-3, 6-4 to Mario Ancic. Blake made 25 unforced errors and hit five double faults as Ancic broke the American twice.

Wild-card Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina lost the opening set tiebreaker but rallied to beat eighth-seeded Tommy Robredo 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-3.

Twenty-two aces weren't enough for Ivan Ljubicic, who committed 51 unforced errors and hit only 14 winners in a 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-5 loss to Austrian qualifier Stefan Koubek.

Earlier, Guillermo Canas beat Agustin Calleri 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 to set up a match with Roger Federer.
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