Top seeds advance with ease in day four of China Open action

The first round of ATP action continued here on Tuesday despite some rain delays at the China Open 2016, with top-seeded players dispatching their opponents with relative ease.

No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal breezed past Italy's Paulo Lorenzi in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1.

Nadal had a few hiccups in an otherwise stellar showing, double-faulting twice in the first set.

The second set was a different story; Nadal scored back-to-back aces in game 4, while Lorenzi suffered back-to-back double faults in the 7th game.

Nadal said he is pleased with his performance.

"Today I think I played a very solid match, playing very aggressive with my forehand. I only played one not very good game. That was in 3-1 of the first set. But for the rest I played a very good match. I'm very happy," he said.

Nadal goes on to meet the winner of the first round match between his Spanish compatriot Albert Ramos-Vinolas and Adrian Mannarino of France.

It was only a slightly more difficult affair for Andy Murray to dispatch Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-2, 7-5 and enter the second round.

Murray of Britain needed only 34 minutes to close out the first set, and although Seppi made him work for it a bit more in the second, Murray closed it out at 7-5 in just 52 minutes of play.

Murray was able to break Seppi's serve twice during the opening set.

In the second, things were more touch and go. Murray had to battle back from 2-0 down in order to seal the straight-sets victory.

Murray's attempt to fight back at Seppi was spurred by two double-faults that the Italian committed; one of those occurred on the point that clinched the match.

It's his eighth consecutive win against the Italian, and Murray says that Seppi tends to allow him chances during play.

"I feel like I'm able to get a lot of chances when he's serving. You know, give myself a lot of opportunities to break," he said.

Also advancing on the men's side were third seed Milos Raonic of Canada, American Jack Sock and German Alexander Zverev.

On the women's side, round two of action also moved forward despite some delays due to rain.

China's Zhang Shuai advanced to the third round with a win over Alison Riske of the United States 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(4).

Zhang said that Riske was a formidable opponent.

"My opponent was quite strong in keeping the ball close to the line. She's really good. I felt kind of at a loss. I didn't know what to do. I just held on, tried to improve.We've been playing for such a long time. I don't feel as strong as I was in the first set," she said.

Zhang will next face fourth seed Simona Halep in the third round, who advanced with a win over Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer.

Also advancing were Frenchwoman Alize Cornet with a win over 10th seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, No.14 Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic who defeated Chinese Wang Yafan, and Russia's 9th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova who bested Misaki Doi of Japan. Endit