Roddick wins opener in Japan

 

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:03

After a marathon first set, Roddick seemed on his way to victory as he served for the match at 6-5 in the second. The 102nd-ranked Minar, however, extended the match with one of his two breaks and won the tiebreak to force a decisive third set.

Each player held serve in the third set before the eighth-ranked Roddick, who finished with 37 aces, finally put things away in the tie-break. Roddick will face Austria’s Jurgen Melzer, against whom he has won all eight previous meetings, in the third round.

Defending champion and top seed David Ferrer also needed three sets to book his place in the third round, topping unseeded American Jesse Levine 6-4 4-6 6-1 to set up a clash with Japan’s Takao Suzuki, who forged a 7-6 (7/5) 4-6 7-6 (7/5) upset of 15th-seeded Italian Simone Bolelli.

Also needing three sets to advance on Wednesday were third seed Fernando Gonzalez – who rallied past Yen-Hsun Lu 1-6 7-5 6-3 – and seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Tsonga, who won his first career title in Bangkok on Sunday, overcame a slow start to secure a 4-6 7-6 (7/4) 6-4 victory over American Bobby Reynolds. The Australian Open finalist, who missed the French Open and Wimbledon following knee surgery, will face Serb Viktor Troicki next.

Gonzalez will face unseeded American Amer Delic next while sixth seed Tommy Robredo and ninth seed Tomas Berdych will contest the other third-round match in that quarter of the draw.

Elsewhere, Juan Martin Del Potro beat Israel’s Dudi Sela 7-5 6-0 Israel’s Dudi Sela to set up a meeting with 11th seed Jarkko Nieminen of Finland.

The remaining quarter of the draw saw eighth seed Mikhail Youzhny and 12th seed Rainer Schuettler advance to set up a third-round showdown, while Kei Nishikori of Japan upset 16th seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez to book a match with Richard Gasquet, seeded four.

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