Nadal leads Italian Masters winners

ROME, April 29 (UPI) -- Spain's Rafael Nadal won his 26th straight clay court match Wednesday, beating Italy's Andreas Seppi 6-2, 6-3 in the third round of the Italian Masters in Rome.

Seppi thrilled a partisan crowd by breaking the world's top-ranked men's player in the first game of the opening set, but was quickly brought back to earth when he lost 34 of the next 44 service points.

"I'm coming here with big motivation because Rome is a very big tournament," Nadal said after his match record on clay courts rose to 143-4 since 2005. "I start well today, so that's very good news."

Other seeds winning Wednesday were No. 2 Roger Federer, No. 5 Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, sixth-seeded Fernando Verdasco of Spain and eighth-seeded Gilles Simon of France. Argentine Juan Monaco knocked off fourth-seeded Andy Murray of Scotland 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.