Nadal untested in second round

MELBOURNE, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- No. 1-ranked Rafael Nadal lost only four games en route to a straight-set, second-round victory Thursday at the Australia Open.

Nadal, who holds the other three Grand Slam titles, dispatched world No. 116 Ryan Sweeting 6-2, 6-1, 6-1. Nadal won 74 percent of the points on serve and didn't face a break point until the third set. He also took 53 percent of the points off Sweeting's serve.

No. 4-seeded Robin Soderling and fifth-seeded Andy Murray also qualified for the third round in straight sets. Soderling had only 15 unforced errors in stopping Gilles Muller 6-3, 7-6 (7-1), 6-1 while Murray fired 16 aces at Illya Marchenko in a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 victory.

Seventh-seeded David Ferrer defeated Michael Russell 6-0, 6-1, 7-5 and No. 11 Jurgen Melzer advanced over Pere Riba 6-2, 6-4, 6-2, but 10th-seeded Mikhail Youzhny went five sets before getting past Blaz Kavcic 6-3, 6-1, 5-7, 4-6, 6-1.

The men's draw lost four seeded players Thursday. Milos Raonic defeated No. 22 Michael Llodra 7-6 (7-3), 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) and Bernard Tomic beat 31st-seeded Feliciano Lopez 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-3), 6-3. Jan Hernych came out on top of a 4 1/2-hour match with No. 30 Thomaz Bellucci 6-2, 6-7 (11-13), 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 8-6. Also Richard Berankis advanced to the third round when with 27th-seeded David Nalbandian retired after becoming ill. Berankis was ahead 6-1, 6-0, 2-0 when the match was stopped.

Other seeded players moving to the third round were No. 20 John Isner, 21st-seeded Marcos Baghdatis and No. 32 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Unseeded Alexandr Dolgopolov topped Benjamin Becker in four sets in a battle of unseeded players.