The Seeded British pair of Greg Rusedski and Tim Henman both scored victories yesterday at the $825,000 Stockholm Open but their winning styles could not have been more of a contrast.
Fourth seed Rusedski was unstoppable in a 6-1, 6-4 first-round thrashing of German Tommy Haas which took just 52 minutes.
Third seed Henman had to work hard to overcome South African threat Wayne Ferreira, finally carving out a 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 trip into the quarter-finals.
Rusedski routed Haas, not even allowing the world number 35 a single point on the German's own serve. Rusedski notched nine aces and was untroubled as he marched on to victory.
Henman started out strong, breaking Ferreira for a 2-0 lead, but the South African did not remain an easy target.
Ferreira broke back on the first of two break points against the Briton to pull to 2-3 and served into a 3-3 score-line a game later.
The match quickly became bogged down with Ferreira serving unsuccessfully for the set on two occasions and each man losing serve three times.
When it went into a tiebreaker, Henman took a 3-0 lead but the world number 27 South African pulled back slightly to 2-4.
Henman notched his third ace to earn a trio of set points, winning through on the first in a set which took almost as long as the entire 52-minute Rusedski victory.
Henman rallied to start the second with a break as his game steadied. The third seed tried to profit from the South African's second double fault of the afternoon, but returned wildly on the first match point.
Henman finally got the win after one hour, 28 minutes with a final break of Ferreira.
Rusedski said that his game is still riding high after his Paris victory on Sunday over Pete Sampras.
"Paris gave me a lot of confidence," said 25-year-old Rusedski. "After losing to Pete six times and beating him in straight sets - that was probably my greatest accomplishment on a tennis court so far." "I had a lot on the line in that match, and so did he. If he'd won he would have had 150 points on (Marcelo) Rios.
"He was hungry to win it. It gives you so much confidence and belief to win a match like that. Not many players have beaten him in three sets in a best-of-five match."
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