Not many players benefit from an injury. Then again, Marat Safin has always been a little different.
Playing better after he twisted his long-tender right ankle, fourth-seeded Safin was testy at times, but kept his famous temper in check in a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 third-round victory Friday against Croatia's Mario Ancic at the Australian Open.
PHOTO: AFP
Still, injuries did take their toll in the season-opening Grand Slam.
PHOTO: AP
Top-ranked Roger Federer was broken in his first service game before getting back on track and spent less than two sets on center court when Finland's Jarkko Nieminen called it quits with an abdominal muscle tear.
Lisa Raymond lasted only one game of her doubles match before retiring with a back muscle strain, leaving her doubtful for her third-round match Saturday against French Open champion Anastasia Myskina. Men's French Open champion Gaston Gaudio, seeded 10th, was able to continue after treatment on both thighs, but Dominik Hrbaty upset him in five sets despite 88 unforced errors.
PHOTO: AP
In women's singles, second-ranked Amelie Mauresmo and US Open titlist Svetlana Kuznetsova both had straight-set victories and will face unseeded opponents in the fourth round.
No. 7 Serena Williams ended the run of wild card entry Sania Mirza, the first Indian woman to make it to the second round of a Grand Slam, finishing off the 6-1, 6-4 victory with a second-serve ace, then skipping off the court. She next meets No. 11 Nadia Petrova.
Wimbledon winner Maria Sharapova, seeded fourth, was playing later, while eighth-seeded Andre Agassi, seeking his fifth title here, took his baseline game into the night's last match against serve-and-volleyer Taylor Dent.
Safin looked tight while just missing the lines early against Ancic, but broke the 2004 Wimbledon semifinalist in the fifth game. He finished off the first set with a pair of aces after squandering a 40-0 lead.
Ancic swapped his white shirt for a blue one and promptly ran off the next four games. Safin got one break back, but Ancic then held twice at love to even up the match.
The crowd included a number of vocal Croats dressed in their national colors and waving their flag. One woman shouted: "Mario, marry me! I love you!"
Both players became increasingly irritable as their unforced errors piled up, muttering to themselves or yelling in anguish at missed opportunities. Safin, notorious for smashing rackets early in his career, often hung his head or stared at his racket as if it had betrayed him. At one point, he rapped his head with his knuckles, trying to regain focus.
"It's a wake-up call," Safin explained. "Sometimes my head goes away and doesn't come back -- I have to get it back here."
After hitting a forehand long to give Safin a break for a 3-1 lead in the third set, Ancic -- back to wearing white again -- bashed a towering fly ball that landed in the seats. Safin netted a backhand on the next point and banged a ball just as high that landed near the umpire's chair.
In between the errors, the two men exchanged heavy topspin drives that often caught the tape during long rallies.
After going up 2-0 in the fourth set, Safin tried to push off to go for a backhand, rolled his right ankle and went down as Ancic held to pull within 2-1. Safin already had the ankle taped, as he has over the last two years, and a trainer reinforced the wrap at the changeover and gave him a painkiller pill.
Safin took his next service game at love with an ace, joking with a line judge who'd earlier called one of his serves wide. He later said the injury relaxed him.
"It ... took all the pressure a little bit from me in the match because I was a little bit uptight," he said. "When I twist my ankle, I just kind of stopped a little bit thinking about the way I was playing. And I played quite a good game afterwards."
Mauresmo next faces Evgenia Linetskaya, a 6-3, 6-4 winner over American Amy Frazier, seeded 21st.
"It's a long way still, three matches down, four to go and some good players still in the field," she said of the prospects for her first Grand Slam title. "I'm happy with how things are going. Hopefully, I get closer and closer to the No. 1 spot."
In other women's matches, 15th-seeded Silvia Farina Elia cruised past British qualifier Elena Baltacha, and 48-year-old Martina Navratilova advanced to the third round of the women's doubles with Daniela Hantuchova.
On the men's side, Thomas Johansson of Sweden, seeded 30th, survived his third consecutive five-set match by downing American Kevin Kim.
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was