Nadal takes time to hit his stride

LONDON (Reuters) - Second seed Rafael Nadal made a slow-burning start to his Wimbledon campaign on Tuesday, taken to a tie-break by Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci before picking up speed to win 7-6 6-2 6-3.

The twice champion, and French Open winner this year for a record seventh time, was 4-0 down in an hour-long first set as his timing went awry on his return to Centre Court.

Any alarm was momentary with Nadal fighting back to 4-4 and winning the eventual tiebreak 7-0. The press box benches that had filled halfway through the set emptied just as swiftly knowing that normal service had resumed.

The world number two took just half an hour more to go two sets up and wrapped up proceedings in two hours 15 minutes.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)