(Recasts after Federer win)
By Barry Wood
DUBAI - World number one Roger Federer repeated
his Australian Open final victory over Marat Safin with a 7-6
7-6 win to reach the second round of the Dubai Open on Tuesday.
The defending champion and Dutchman Sjeng Schalken were the
only two seeds to survive the day's play.
Second seed Guillermo Coria and fourth seed David Nalbandian
both lost their first round ties, joining Rainer Schuettler,
Mark Philippoussis and Tim Henman, who all went out on Monday.
The one remaining seeded player, seventh seed Paradorn
Srichaphan plays Dominik Hrbaty on Wednesday.
Federer's serve was his only weakness against Russian Safin
but it was able to get him out of trouble when he needed it.
It came to his rescue at 4-4 in the first set, when the
Swiss faced two break points that would have left Safin serving
for the set.
Four strong serves allowed Federer to hold, and he went on
to dominate the tiebreak.
"I thought I was putting myself in trouble with my serving,"
said Federer.
"I was serving much better in Australia but the conditions
were heavy and it was very difficult to hit a winner."
With Safin feeling fresher than he had during their
Australian Open meeting, the two were more evenly matched and
there were several furiously contested rallies.
Safin, a wildcard entrant, thought that he had competed well
against the man who beat him 7-6 6-4 6-2 for the Australian Open
title last month.
"I fought much better today (than in Australia) and was a
just little bit unlucky in the tiebreaks," said 30th-ranked
Safin.
"I had chances but didn't take them, and whatever chances he
had he took. But I felt really good and felt like I could win
today. It's not like I'm struggling with my confidence."
Federer will next meet Spain's Tommy Robredo, who defeated
Swede Jonas Bjorkman 6-4 6-4,
Eighth seed Schalken survived to reach the second round with
an untroubled 6-3 6-1 win over Sargis Sargsian of Armenia.
But second seed Coria lost 4-6 6-3 6-4 to Russia's Mikhail
Youzhny, and fourth seed Nalbandian fell 6-3 6-4 to Jarkko
Nieminen of Finland.
Both Argentine Coria and Youzhny struggled to find their
rhythm in the first two sets but produced several dramatic
rallies in the third.
Youzhny moved better, and he struck several fine backhand
winners to make him a worthy winner.