Roddick shows no stomach-strain sign in routing Vasselin

Winston-Salem, North Carolina — Top-seeded Andy Roddick showed no signs of a stomach strain that has bothered him recently as he cruised to a 6-2, 6-4 win over Edouard Roger-Vasselin yesterday in the second round at the Winston-Salem Open, a warmup for next week’s U.S. Open.

Roddick, a former No. 1 who is 21st in the ATP rankings, was playing just his second match in the last six weeks because of an abdominal strain. He had little trouble with the 27-year-old Frenchman who is ranked 107th.

Roddick will face either Blaz Kavcic or No. 15-seeded Santiago Giraldo in the quarterfinals.

Roddick and fourth-seeded John Isner are the only Americans left in the field.

Isner beat Dudi Sela 7-6 (3), 6-2 in the second round earlier in the day. Isner, who is 28th in the ATP rankings, next faces 13th-seeded Jarkko Nieminen of Finland, who beat Denis Istomin 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Three seeded players were upset in afternoon matches. Belgium’s Steve Darcis rallied to beat No. 11 seed Dmitry Tursunov 3-6, 6-1, 6-3, and qualifier Julien Benneteau of France claimed a 6-3, 6-1 victory over No. 16 seed Igor Kunitsyn. Kei Nishikori of Japan defeated 12th-seeded Pablo Andujar 7-6 (3), 6-2.

In addition to Isner, four other seeded players won early matches.

No. 5-seeded Nikolay Davydenko beat American Michael Russell 6-2, 6-2; No. 7 Juan Monaco topped Germany’s Tobias Kamke 7-5, 6-0; No. 10 Robin Haase defeated American James Blake 6-4, 6-1; and No. 14 Grigor Dimitrov beat American Donald Young 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (2).

In later matches, No. 9 Sergiy Stakhovsky beat Andrey Golubev 6-1, 2-6, 6-4; Pierre-Ludovic Duclos edged American Ryan Harrison 7-5, 7-5; and third-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov defeated Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq 6-4, 6-4.

Tournament director Bill Oakes says no matches were stopped due to the earthquake that shook parts of the East Coast and that “no one really seemed to notice it.”

But Isner did.

“I was upstairs (in the stadium) with my mum, and she was like, `It’s an earthquake,”’ Isner said. “And I was like, `Come on, there aren’t earthquakes in North Carolina.”’ /ap