Taiwan’s Chang Kai-chen and Lu Yen-hsun both advanced to the second round of the Australian Open yesterday, but while Chang cruised through in the women’s singles, Lu struggled through a five-set epic that lasted 3 hours, 30 minutes.
Chang was on court for 67 minutes as she easily disposed of Petra Martic, defeating the Croatian 6-4, 6-2.
Chang served up two aces and three double-faults as she won 73 percent of her games on first serve, while her opponent converted just 56 percent. The Taiwanese also converted five of her seven break points to set up a second-round meeting with 13th seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia.
Photo: AFP
In a contrasting match in the men’s singles, Lu battled past Rik de Voest of South Africa 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 on court 13.
Lu served seven aces and four double-faults as he won 78 percent of his games on first serve, while his South African opponent converted 67 percent. The Taiwanese world No. 79 converted five of 10 break points to eventually set up a second-round match with Frenchman Florent Serra, who advanced when Belgium’s Steve Darcis retired when leading their match 7-6 (7/3), 6-3, 4-5.
Also in the men’s draw, Rafael Nadal suffered a new injury scare — a tendon problem in his right knee that nearly forced him to also forfeit his first-round match that he eventually managed to win easily.
Photo: AFP
Roger Federer, defending women’s champion Kim Clijsters and top seed Caroline Wozniacki, also bothered by injuries coming into the tournament, all advanced to the second round in more routine fashion and appeared as if they were over their ailments.
That was not the case for Nadal. Bothered by a left-shoulder injury late last year, Nadal had his right knee heavily taped during his 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 win over Alex Kuznetsov. The injury occurred in the most innocent of ways — sitting in a chair in his hotel room when he felt “a crack” in his knee and some “unbelievable pain.”
He had an MRI scan late on Sunday that showed no major damage to his knee, but before that the incident left him thinking: “I wasn’t 100 percent sure I would have a chance to play.”
Photo: AFP
Federer, who pulled out of a tournament in Doha two weeks ago with back soreness, began the quest for his 17th Grand Slam title with a 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 win over qualifier Alexander Kudryavtsev.
Third seed Federer took the first two sets and was up a break in the third, before the Russian rallied with a break of serve in the fifth game of the final set, but Federer broke Kudryavtsev in the next game with a backhand cross-court winner and sealed the match when the Russian hit a forehand wide.
“No problem, I am happy to be 100 percent fit,” Federer said after his win.
He batted away just as quickly speculation about a possibly divisive issue with Nadal.
Nadal was critical of Federer on Sunday for not speaking out publicly in support of players who are pushing the ATP for changes in areas such as tournament scheduling and prize money.
“Things are fine between us, you know. I have no hard feelings towards him,” Federer said. “It’s been a difficult last few months in terms of politics within the ATP.”
Defending women’s champion Clijsters opened with a 7-5, 6-1 win over Portuguese qualifier Maria Joao Koehler, showing no signs of the hip spasms which forced her to withdraw from a tuneup event in Brisbane 10 day ago.
Wozniacki, who injured her left wrist in a quarter-final loss at the Sydney International, showed no signs of discomfort while easily beating Australia’s Anastasia Rodionova 6-2, 6-1 in the last match of the evening on Rod Laver Arena.
“I got a bit nervous about my wrist in Sydney, but I am happy I could play full-out tonight,” Wozniacki said.
Li Na, who lost the Australian final to Clijsters last year, had a 6-3, 6-1 win over Ksenia Pervak of Kazakhstan.
In the first featured match of the tournament, third seed Victoria Azarenka won 12 straight games to finish off Heather Watson 6-1, 6-0 in 67 minutes in the opening match on center court.
Li was a trailblazer for China last year, reaching a Grand Slam singles final for the first time, before losing to Clijsters at Melbourne Park. At the subsequent major, she won the French Open to become the first player from China to win a Grand Slam singles title.
“I hope I can go one better this year,” Li said of her campaign.
Of the six women who can reach the top ranking, eighth-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska has the biggest task, having to win the Australian title. She had a battle on her hands just to make the second round, fending off Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US 6-7 (10/12), 6-4, 6-2 in a three-hour match on court 2.
Other women advancing included No. 16 seed Peng Shuai of China, No. 20 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, No. 22 Julia Goerges, No. 26 Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain and Eleni Daniilidou of Greece beat 41-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan 6-3, 6-2.
No. 19 Flavia Pennetta, No. 23 Lucie Safarova and No. 28 Yanina Wickmayer were among the first-round losers.
Most of the local attention was on 19-year-old Bernard Tomic, who rallied from two sets down to beat No. 22 seed Fernando Verdasco 4-6, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 6-2, 7-5. A five-set win over the 2009 semi-finalist will no doubt give Tomic a confidence boost as he attempts to become the first Australian man since 1976 to win the national title.
“Today wasn’t fun, it was torture,” Tomic said. “I don’t know how I found the energy to lift, how I did it, but I thank the crowd.”
Eighth seed Mardy Fish, the highest ranked of the US men, had a 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win over Gilles Muller to progress along with 2009 US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, No. 7 Tomas Berdych, No. 10 Nicolas Almagro, No. 13 Alexandr Dolgopolov, No. 18 Feliciano Lopez, No. 21 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland and No. 30 Kevin Anderson of South Africa.
No. 25 Juan Monaco, No. 28 Ivan Ljubicic and No. 31 Jurgen Melzer joined Verdasco as other seeded players to lose.
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