American Andy Roddick romped past lucky loser Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-2 6-4 to reach the third round of the Winston-Salem Open on Tuesday, and get his U.S. Open preparations back on track. Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion, has seen his buildup to the season’s final grand slam interrupted by an abdominal injury, but showed no signs of rust speeding past his French opponent in 73 minutes.
Ranked 21 and outside the world top 20 for the first time since 2001, Roddick has played just one event since Wimbledon losing his opening match last week at Cincinnati. But the American looked in vintage form blasting 11 aces past Roger-Vasselin and completed the match without facing a break point. Unlike the WTA event in New Haven, Connecticut, which had play halted by the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that rattled the eastern seaboard of the United States, the Winston-Salem carried on without interruption.
Ukrainian third seed Alexandr Dolgopolov was an easy 6-4 6-4 winner over Argentine Carlos Berlocq while fourth seed American John Isner eased past Israeli Dudi Sela 7-6 6-2. It was also smooth passage into the third round for Nikolai Davydenko, the fifth seeded Russian rolling over American qualifier Michael Russell 6-2 6-2 while seventh seed Juan Monaco of Argentina stopped Germany’s Tobias Kamke 7-5 6-0. Ukrainian number nine Sergiy Stakhovsky saw off Kazakhstan’s Andrei Golubev 6-1 2-6 6-4 while 10th seeded Dutchman Robin Haase, the ATP Tour’s comeback player of the year, swept past American James Blake 6-4 6-1.
