BARCELONA: Rafael Nadal opened his bid for a sixth Barcelona Open title with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Daniel Gimeno-Traver Wednesday. The top-ranked Nadal hammered his fellow Spaniard with hard groundstrokes, cruising to victory after breaking Gimeno-Traver's first two service games. Nadal, who sat out last year's event after winning five straight titles from 2005 to 2009, will face Santiago Giraldo of Colombia in the third round of the outdoor clay-court event. Robin Soderling's disappointing run of form continued as the No. 5-ranked Swede was comfortably beaten 6-2, 6-4 by Croatian Ivan Dodig in his first claycourt match of the year. Earlier, fourth-seeded David Ferrer made quick work of Carlos Berlocq of Argentina to win 6-2, 6-2, and will meet Victor Hanescu, after the Romanian beat Kevin Anderson of South Africa 6-4, 6-4. Ninth-seeded Richard Gasquet outlasted Slovenia's Blaz Kavcic 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 to set up an all-French clash with seventh-seeded Gael Monfils. Sixth-seeded Jurgen Melzer thrashed Marcel Granollers of Spain 6-1, 6-3 and will pair off with Albert Montanes, who rallied to oust Benoit Paire of France 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-4. The 2001 champion Juan Carlos Ferrero downed German lucky loser Mischa Zverev, who took the place of the injured Andy Murray, 6-4, 7-5. Meanwhile, former top 10 player Nikolay Davydenko eliminated Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France 6-2, 7-6 (11), and will play eighth seed Nicolas Almagro. Wozniacki, Zvonareva thru Top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki passed the Porsche Grand Prix second round for the first time when she beat Zuzana Kucova of Slovakia 6-1, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Wozniacki's bid for a fourth title this year set her up against Andrea Petkovic of Germany, who rallied to defeat former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic 3-6, 6-1, 6-3. Also, Vera Zvonareva rallied to beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 in an all-Russian match. Also in the second round, Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland beat French Open champion Francesca Schiavone 6-1, 6-3. Sabine Lisicki downed Australian Open runner-up Li Na 6-4, 7-5, and Kristina Barrois defeated eighth-seeded Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-2. Arn in quarterfinals In Morocco, Greta Arn of Hungary overcame problems on her serve to beat Kristyna Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals of the Grand Prix SAR on Wednesday. In the last eight, Arn will face seventh-seeded Simona Halep of Romania who beat Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia 6-2, 6-4. There were first-round wins for Slovenia's Polona Hercog and American Melanie Oudin, who upset third-seeded Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain 4-6, 6-1, 6-2. Hercog needed almost three hours to beat South Africa's Chanelle Scheepers 6-7 (6), 7-6 (1), 6
