Nadal survives Baghdatis test

DUBAI: World number two Rafael Nadal, playing his first match since finishing the Australian Open injured last month, survived a tough first round test against Marcos Baghdatis at the Dubai Open on Tuesday.   

Nadal's 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 win over the in-form world number 17 from Cyprus earned him a place in the second round in defence of his title.   

But for a while it looked as though the chances of a repeat encounter between the young French Open champion and triple Grand Slam titleholder Roger Federer would be halted at the first obstacle.    

Baghdatis started superbly, discreetly varying the pace from behind the baseline, and suddenly pitching in with flat, flashing drives projected at sharp angles.    

But after giving Nadal the chances to break early in both the second and third sets - serving double faults in the third game of each - he found himself increasingly under pressure from an opponent who played more aggressively than he had in Australia.   

"When you have everything under control and then you put an opponent like him in the match and he gets confident and plays deeper and makes you move more, mentally you say 'shit'" said Baghdatis.   

"My problem is not my tennis. My problem is consistency in the head. The head is not there. Mentally I am not tough."   

There was no question that Nadal was mentally tough. He did not panic, either at getting so difficult an opponent after such a break, or at going a set down.   

He concentrated on serving a little heavier and getting in with fiercer forehand follow-ups, several times making openings which he took skillfully at the net.   

"This was my best match of the year," Nadal reckoned. "Getting your rhythm when you have not had competition is difficult, but I was feeling not bad. To start with he was playing better than me but I felt better and better and I was more aggressive with my forehand and I was serving good too. I was not too afraid of this match because I was practising well."

Nadal next plays Igor Andreev, who was Russia's Davis Cup hero earlier this month, while Federer, who also struggled to get through the first round in three sets Monday will play Daniele Bracciali.    

Another seed to go out was David Ferrer, the number four from Spain, who was beaten 7-6 (15/13), 6-1 by Robin Soderling, the improving Swede, despite having five set points in a 28-point tie-breaker.   

This followed the departure the previous day of another Spaniard, the fourth-seeded Tommy Robredo, which means that both seeds in the third quarter of the draw are out. If Nadal reaches the semi-finals he will have an unseeded opponent.   

Two other seeds, Nikolay Davydenko of Russia and Tommy Haas of Germany did well to survive, after looking in trouble for different reasons.   

Davydenko was ambushed by Younes El Aynaoui, the 35-year-old wild card from Morocco who was seeking only his fifth win on the main tour in more than three years after a long sequence of injuries.   

Davydenko eventually survived 6-7 (2/7), 7-5, 7-5, but only after El Aynaoui, serving brilliantly and taking all sorts of well-judged risks with his excellent forehand, had recovered from deficits of 1-3 in the second set and 1-4 in the third, and fully tested the phlegmatic third seed's temperament.   

Haas had just flown all the way from Memphis, where he won the title, which has a ten-hour time difference, arriving at 1.30 am on the morning of his match with Radek Stepanek, the top 20 Czech. Yet the fifth-seeded German prevailed 6-4, 6-3. "I survived a 17-hour journey," said Haas on court after his jet-lag defying success.

"Who cares what time it is if you are playing all right?"