It only took the Spaniard 53 minutes to progress against Jared Donaldson, which was two minutes shorter than Federer’s first set against Diego Schwartzman.

Alexander Zverev – who, like Nadal and Federer, has already confirmed his ATP World Tour Finals place – had a brief encounter with Aljaz Bedene in his second-round match.

The pair were only on the court 12 minutes before Bedene was forced to retire with a knee injury, third seed Zverev having taken the opening four games.

Kevin Anderson, David Goffin and Dominic Thiem were surprise casualties, but there were no such problems for John Isner.

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EASY FOR LAVER CUP TEAM-MATES

During the recent Laver Cup Nadal and Federer paired up for the first time to win a doubles match, and the victories keep on coming for the two men.

Nadal was rarely troubled by Donaldson as he racked up a 13th win in a row, the world number one moving onto a match with Fabio Fognini thanks to a 6-2 6-1 victory.

Schwartzman put up a valiant battle against second seed Federer, but the class of the Swiss shone through, his groundstrokes unerringly accurate – much to the frustration of his opponent.

Two sublime aces completed a 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 victory and booked a third-round clash with Alexandr Dolgopolov.

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DIMITROV SURVIVES TRIPLE SCARE

Grigor Dimitrov had a much tougher day against Ryan Harrison as the American came close to causing an upset in the third-set tie-break.

Harrison raced into a 6-3 lead in the breaker to get three match points, but he spurned them all – the final one with a long volley – and Dimitrov made him pay.

The sixth seed picked up four points in a row to move in sight, and he made no mistake with a pinpoint ace, his 16th of the match, securing a 3-6 6-3 7-6 (8-6) win.

Dimitrov will meet Sam Querrey in round three, but fellow seeds Kevin Anderson and David Goffin could not follow suit.

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ISNER SURVIVES BUT SEEDS SLIP

While the majority of the seeds in action on Wednesday enjoyed a safe progression to round three, Anderson and Goffin made early exits.

Anderson was a surprise casualty at the hands of Jan-Lennard Struff, while Goffin suffered a 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 defeat to Gilles Simon.

Thiem managed to force a decider after letting the first set slip to Viktor Troicki. The fifth seed managed to draw level from 5-2 down in a tie-break but dropped serve to give Troicki match point and the 31-year-old duly clinched a 6-3 3-6 7-6 (7-5) triumph.

There were no such problems for John Isner, though, as he had the better of two tie-breaks to beat Greek qualifier Stefanos Tsitsipas.

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