Roger Federer closed with an ace and then a rifling forehand on Wednesday, starting his fine-tuning for an Australian Open title defence with a 5-7, 6-1, 6-4 win over Gaston Gaudio at the Kooyong Classic exhibition tournament.
Andre Agassi unveiled a sleeker physique in his 6-1, 7-6 (4) win over Olympic gold medallist Nicolas Massu and next faces second-ranked Andy Roddick, who breezed to a 6-1, 6-4 win over Croatia’s Ivan Ljubicic — a late replacement for injured Paradorn Srichaphan.
Agassi and Roddick will meet on Thursday in the eight-man promotion-relegation format, while Federer next plays on Friday against Tim Henman, who had a 6-1, 7-5 win over Argentina’s David Nalbandian.
Top-ranked Federer, who won 11 titles last year — including three majors — and started this season with another title at Qatar last weekend, lost a service game for the first time this year in the first set against French Open champion Gaudio.
He upped the tempo in the second, breaking Gaudio’s serve twice, and then went a break up in the seventh game of the deciding third set.
Coming into Kooyong, Federer had won 21 consecutive matches in ATP Tour events.
He said having an exhibition tournament as a tune-up for a major gives him the perfect chance to tinker with some of his shots without risking his tour record.
”It gives you an option to try out some things, that’s very clear,” he said. ”It’s good to start the Australian trip with a win — at least I’ve got a bit of rhythm now.”
Federer lacked his usual precision on his serve in the first set and sprayed most of his 49 unforced errors early as he adjusted to the faster pace of the Australian courts.
He found his service range and got his powerful forehand working in the second set, having 11 of his 24 winners on that side.
Agassi (34) knows he needs something extra to counter Federer’s arsenal of shots this season.
So in the off season, he trimmed down to about 74kg from about 80kg after concentrating on strength and fitness instead of tennis technique.
”It’s not about hitting the ball harder, it’s about hitting your normal shot easier and that’s what I believe being stronger offers you,” Agassi said. ”You can do everything you’ve always done, you just do it with more margin for error, it means you can do it for longer.”
Agassi has won the Kooyong Classic three times, in 2000, 2001 and 2003, and each time he has gone on to win the subsequent Australian Open.
”Being down here feeling good physically and looking forward to the tennis to me is a great opportunity to hopefully have some magical things happen,” said Agassi, who is aiming for a fifth Australian title.
He’ll need to get past fellow American Roddick first. Roddick said he is using the United States’s loss in the Davis Cup final to Spain last month as motivation for this season.
He started with a 61-minute win over Ljubicic, who lost to Federer in the Qatar final last weekend.
The outcome wasn’t as important as the match practice for Roddick, but he said he would get a psychological boost ahead of a major if he beat Agassi in the next match.
Whenever ”Andre and I practise — even if a tournament is a month away — we’re still intense”, said Roddick, guaranteeing their head-to-head will be more than an exhibition.
The losers of Wednesday’s matches go into a bracket to play off for fifth to eighth places.
Ljubicic was drafted into the eight-man draw to replace Paradorn, who withdrew because of an injured right wrist. The problem wasn’t expected to keep him out of next week’s Australian Open.
Ljubicic will play Massu on Thursday and Nalbandian faces Gaudio. — Sapa-AP