Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray both progressed through to the third round of the Madrid Masters on Tuesday, but the two seeds experienced vastly contrasting victories.
While top seed Nadal had to work hard for his 7-5 3-6 6-3 over Latvian Ernests Gulbis, fourth seed Murray was on course to thrash Simone Bolelli when the Italian lucky loser was forced to retire with what looked like a shoulder problem.
The Scot, playing in his first competitive match since last month's Davis Cup, was leading 6-0 2-1 at the time and he will now face Marin Cilic for a place in the quarter-finals after the Croatian knocked out 13th seed Fernando Verdasco 6-2 6-3.
Nadal, whose next opponent is 15th seed Richard Gasquet, has found Gulbis a tough nut to crack before.
In their only previous meeting the Spaniard eventually triumphed 5-7 6-2 7-6 (7/2) 6-3 en route to winning the Wimbledon title this summer, and it was a similar story in Madrid on Tuesday.
‘He played well in the second set but he played well in the whole match. It was very difficult,’ said Nadal, who has lost in the quarter-finals in the last two years here after winning the Madrid Masters in 2005.
Nadal also thanked the crowd for their support, adding: ‘It's always easy to play at home, the crowd are always fantastic with me here in Madrid.
‘Always when I have difficult moments the public support me, not just here today but before, so thanks to them.’
Murray was back in singles action for the first time since last month's Davis Cup, and the world number four admits the break did him the world of good.
‘It made a big difference, I was home for about four and a half weeks, so it was really nice,’ he said after his comfortable outing against Bolelli.
It was not such a good day for Madrid-born Verdasco, who said after his surprise defeat to Cilic: ‘There is not much of an explanation that I can give when you play so bad and make so many mistakes.’
Verdasco was not the only seeded player unable to negotiate his first hurdle though - the top 16 players all got first-round byes - as American James Blake was also knocked out on Tuesday.
Blake, seeded 11, managed to take the first set in his clash with Gilles Simon, but it was the Frenchman who would end up triumphant with a 3-6 6-1 6-4 victory.
Fifteenth seed Gasquet was also put to the test before recovering from dropping the first set to beat American Mardy Fish 6-7 (3/7) 6-4 6-3.
Those were the only five second-round matches played on Tuesday, although there were eight first-round games.
Among them saw another big-name player sent tumbling out as Spaniard Carlos Moya was thrashed 6-2 6-2 by Austrian Philip Kohlschreiber.
The former world number one had made one final and two quarter-final appearances in the last month, but he came up short on Tuesday.
‘I've been playing well and I would to see this as more of a slip-up than anything,’ Moya said.
In the other first-round matches, three Frenchman were sent tumbling as Paul Henri Mathieu, Michael Llodra and Florent Serra lost to Marcel Granollers, Robby Ginepri and Robin Soderling respectively.
Another Frenchman, Gael Monfils, had a better time of it though as he saw off Fabio Fognini 6-2 6-4, while in the other encounters Jarkko Nieminen beat Mikhail Youzhny and Victor Hanescu knocked out Dmitry Tursunov in a pair of three-setters.
