Nadal cruises through round two

Rafael Nadal continued his smooth progress at the Australian Open to set up a third-round meeting with home favourite Bernard Tomic.

Nadal, who was leading Marcos Daniel 6-0 5-0 in round one before the Brazilian retired, was pushed slightly harder by American Ryan Sweeting but the outcome was still a formality as Nadal cruised home 6-2 6-1 6-1 in one hour and 42 minutes.

He will now play Tomic, who stunned 31st seed Feliciano Lopez 7-6 (7/4) 7-6 (7/3) 6-3 on Hisense Arena. It is the match-up Australia was hoping for and is guaranteed prime-time billing on Saturday night.

World number one Nadal won the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open last year, and arrived in Melbourne hoping to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four grand slam titles simultaneously.

His opening two matches suggest he remains the man to beat, especially as chief rival Roger Federer showed some unexpected vulnerability in Wednesday night's five-set defeat of Gilles Simon.

If the pressure is on Nadal, it is not showing. He insists last year's successes mean he can relax and simply focus on accumulating more silverware.

"I am very happy with what I did last year," he said. "It has made me very calm. I have probably less pressure on me now because of last season when I won a lot. But I still have to work hard every day. That's what I do - keep practising with humility and motivation."

Frenchman Michael Llodra was another seed to fall early on day four, the Frenchman losing 7-6 (7/3) 6-3 7-6 (7/4) to Milos Raonic of Canada but Mikhail Youzhny, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Marin Cilic all progressed.

Tenth-seed Youzhny beat Blaz Kavcic 6-3 6-1 5-7 4-6 6-1 while Tsonga (13) and Cilic (15) did not lose a set against Andreas Seppi and Santiago Giraldo respectively.

Alexandr Dolgopolov beat Benjamin Becker while 32nd seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez overcame Eduardo Schwank to set up a possible third-round encounter with Andy Murray, who meets Illya Marchenko later today.