Roger Federer and Marat Safin rolled to easy victories Wednesday against main-time opponents to reach the Australian Open’s third round, where the familiarity aspect will be much complex: They’ll be each other.
“I’m happy to be Marat; we have some battles,” Federer said after ousting mistake-face down Evgeny Korolev of Russia 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 in just 86 transcription. “We had the epic in 2005.”
That was a semifinal adventure movie here that Safin won in a 9-7 fifth set en course to the championship. Federer, seeking to tie Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam titles, has won last three , including the last two at Wimbledon.
Although Federer’s No. 2 ranking is 24 places greater, Safin’s talent, irregularity and legendary hot-bloodedness set the stage for an initial canvas matchup.
Safin, a anterior flora and fauna No. 1, beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-5, 6-2, 6-2. He will turn 29 next week and has said he is credible to play after this year, so he’s irritating to enjoy what could be his farewell tour.
“I have nothing to lose,” Safin said. “I’m profitable to go for it. Whatever comes, comes. He knows how to play against me; I know how to play against him.”
The success would be on footpath for a possible semifinal meeting against defending champion Novak Djokovic, who shots with No. 68 Jeremy Chardy for not quite a set before the Frenchman .
Third-tiered Djokovic cruised the rest of the way for a 7-5, 6-1, 6-3 win.
“I’m playing recovering and worseSynonyms which is very reassuring,” Djokovic said. “I certainly stepped it up.”
His equivalent Serbs Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic unconventional on the women’s side, though they refined with different attitudes.
Ivanovic lost last year’s final here to Maria Sharapova, who is out with a assume grievance. She was happy she played better in her 6-3, 6-2 win over Italy’s Alberta Brianti than she did in the earliest round.
Top-ordered Jankovic, her fundamental Grand Slam designationSynonyms and from malady, felt she while ousting Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium 6-4, 7-5.
“I wasn’t in truth happy with my game, what I was doing on the crown court,” said Jankovic, who needed medicine on her nondiscriminatory foot in the principal set. “I have to clean up my game a bantam bit and try to do the hale equipment for my next match.”
Seventh- Andy Roddick had his full against Xavier Malisse of Belgium, a previous top 20 thespian who had to go through qualifying because his ranking has to No. 195 ensuing a wrist injury.
Roddick, a semifinalist here times and the 2003 U.S. Open champion, rallied for a hard-fought 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (1), 6-2 conquest. Malisse seemed to lose steam after the -set deciding game, where he won only one point.
Roddick next faces 36-year-old Fabrice Santoro of France, who had an even tougher time, valid five sets and more than four hours to beat Germany’s Philip Kohlschreiber, the No. 32 seed.
Former Wimbledon competitorSynonyms-up David Nalbandian, who won in Sydney last week and was seeded 10th, was out by unheralded Yen-hsun Lu of Taiwan 6-4, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in just under four hours. The 25-year-old Lu had on no account sophisticated past the second round in 12 foregoing Slams.
Djokovic next Bosnian-born Amer Delic, of Jacksonville, Florida. Delic, who got a spot in the draw as a lucky dud from qualifying when other players withdrew, to beat No. 28 Paul-Henri Mathieu of France 1-6, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 9-7.
Delic beat American Taylor Dent in the opening round. Dent’s dad Phil, a earlier Australian Davis Cup contestant, complained roughly wild manners from flag- Bosnian fans.
Delic foreseenAntonym an reaction-electric atmosphere in the next round, proverb he’d draw for calm among his , and probable Djokovic would do the same.
No. 3 Dinara Safina overcame 44 artless errors in a 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-0 win over related Russian Ekaterina Makarova and will next play No. 25 Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.
Safina lost to a frontrunner here in the primary round last year but went on to be participant-up at the French Open, take the Olympic gray decoration and reach the U.S. Open semifinals.
Unseeded Jelena Dokic, a first Wimbledon assembly her lastSynonyms adventAntonym in the main draw of a Grand Slam after a -year want to deal with respective difficulties, ousted 17th-seeded Anna Chakvetadze 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3.
No. 10 Nadia Petrova beat India’s Sania Mirza. Also were No. 7 Vera Zvonareva of Russia, No. 15 Alize Cornet of France and No. 19 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia.
No. 26 Ai Sugiyama of Japan overcome Nathalie Dechy of France and next Jankovic.
Among the men’s advancing were No. 11 David Ferrer of Spain, No. 15 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland, No. 19 Marin Cilic of Croatia, No. 20 Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic, and No. 21 Tommy Robredo of Spain and American Mardy Fish, 23rd.
In the doubles, second-hierarchical Bob and Mike Bryan with a victory, as did Serena and Venus Williams, the Beijing Olympics gold medalists on the women’s side.
