David Nalbandian and Ivan Ljubicic led the top men’s seeds safely into the second round of the Australian Open on Monday, but there were some wobbles en route.
Nalbandian, the Argentinian world number four, was taken to five sets by a Thai qualifier.
He looked to be cruising to a straight-sets victory before he encountered turbulence from the 121th-ranked Danai Udomchoke and was forced to sweat it out on court for three-and-a-half hours.
The Argentinian finally subdued him 6-2, 6-2, 1-6, 6-7 (4/7), 6-1 to set up a second-round encounter with Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka.
Ljubicic, seeded seven, fared better as he looks to translate his Davis Cup heroics into winning grand-slam form after coming up tops in against Australian wild card Chris Guccione.
He won 7-6 (7/5), 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) in two hours and six minutes and will play Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany in the next round.
Second seed Andy Roddick was scheduled to play Swiss Michael Lammer later on Monday, while Britain’s Tim Henman had an appointment under lights with Russian Dmitry Tursunov.
Elsewhere in the men’s draw on the opening day, Argentine eighth seed Gaston Gaudio only played 13 games before his Romanian opponent Razvan Sabau retired with a right elbow injury.
Ljubicic’s Davis Cup teammate Mario Ancic, the 18th seed, accounted for Argentina’s Agustin Calleri, while American 20th seed James Blake, the winner of Saturday’s Sydney International, downed another Argentinian, Jose Acasuso, after a tiebreaker in the fourth set.
But former French Open champion and 1997 Australian Open finalist Carlos Moya, seeded 32, crashed out to Romanian Andrei Pavel 6-4, 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 3-6, 6-4.
American power-server Taylor Dent, seeded 27, followed Moya out of the tournament, falling to Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 7-6 (7/4).
Nalbandian went into the year’s opening grand slam under the weather after a virus forced him out of the lead-up Kooyong Classic, and he was angling for a trouble-free opening round match.
”It’s not the best way to start, but it is good always to win,” Nalbandian said. ”It doesn’t matter the score, I know that was longer than I expected. But I’m happy because in the end I feel I was playing much better than the beginning. So I go out on the court with a good feeling.”
Danai only got into the main draw through qualifying after missing out over the past six years.
Nalbandian has been a quarterfinalist in Melbourne for the past three years and in 2005 lost 10-8 in the fifth set to eventual finalist Lleyton Hewitt in a titanic battle.
Shaven-headed Ljubicic became the first man to win 11 live Davis Cup ties last year as Croatia went on to lift their first teams’ trophy with a 3-2 win over the Slovak Republic in the final.
He missed out on equalling American great John McEnroe’s 12-0 Davis Cup record, but 2005 was a stellar year for the 26-year-old, who won two titles in eight finals and qualified for the Masters Cup.
Ljubicic has a poor record in grand slams, failing to get past the third round in 25 major tournaments over seven years.
But he started to redress that imbalance in this year’s Australian Open with a straight-sets win over the big-serving Guccione, seen as the future of Australian tennis.
It was the Croat’s sixth straight win this year after snaring his fourth career title in Chennai by defeating Moya in the final earlier this month.
Given his current career-highest number-eight ranking, Ljubicic said he is enjoying being the hunted and not the hunter.
”Everybody wants to beat you. That’s why I really enjoy this moment,” he said. — Sapa-AFP