MADRID, Spain -- Andy Roddick blew a match point and lost
3-6, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (3) to Ivo Karlovic on Wednesday in the second
round of the Madrid Masters in a contest between big servers.
Roddick, seeded second, was playing his first match since losing
in the first round of the U.S. Open.
"For two sets, I don't think I could have played better,"
Roddick said. "It was the highest quality match we've played."
He had an easy first set and held match point at 6-5 in the
second-set tiebreaker against the 6-foot-10 Croat, the ATP Tour's
tallest player. Karlovic won the tiebreak 9-7 on his second set
point when Roddick's return went wide.
Both players had chances to break in the deciding set, but they
served to another tiebreaker before Karlovic took a 3-1 lead.
"You're going to have two or three points per tiebreaker that's
either going to go your way or it's not," Roddick said. "It
didn't go my way tonight. In the second tiebreaker, I don't think I
played a bad point."
Earlier, Rafael Nadal beat Victor Hanescu of Romania 7-6 (5),
6-3 in the second round, the top-seeded Spaniard's first match
before a home crowd since his French Open victory.
Nadal has not trained for three weeks because of knee
tendinitis. He received a first-round bye along with the 15 other
seeded players in the ATP Masters Series event.
"The match was not easy," he said. "I was a bit nervous, a
bit slow."
Nadal trailed 3-1 in the first set and 3-0 in the tiebreaker
before rallying. In the second set, Nadal broke to lead 4-3 and
broke again to win.
Other winners were third-seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia,
fourth-seeded Guillermo Coria of Argentina, sixth-seeded Mariano
Puerta of Argentina and eighth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia.
Seventh-seeded Gaston Gaudio lost to Jose Acasuso 7-6 (4), 6-2
in the second round in an all-Argentine match. Gaudio dropped his
fifth straight match, hurting his chances of qualifying for the
Tennis Masters Cup next month in Shanghai, China. Four already have
secured berths: Nadal, Roddick, Roger Federer and Marat Safin.
Davydenko beat Slovakia's Karol Beck 6-4, 6-1, and Coria
defeated Belgian qualifier Christophe Rochus 6-3, 6-4 to improve
his chances of making the season finale.
"It was an ugly match, boring for spectators," Coria said.
"But the important thing was to win."
Rochus' younger brother, Olivier, knocked out 12th-seeded Mario
Ancic of Croatia 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5); Puerta edged Max Mirnyi of
Belarus 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5); and Ljubicic defeated Alberto Martin of
Spain 6-3, 7-6 (7).
Also, ninth-seeded Thomas Johansson of Sweden beat Argentina's
Juan Ignacio Chela 7-6 (2), 6-3; 10th-seeded Radek Stepanek of the
Czech Republic rallied past Britain's Tim Henman 6-4, 1-6, 6-3; and
14th-seeded Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia eliminated Germany's Tommy
Haas 6-4, 6-2.