TOP seed Rafael Nadal overcame a defiant display by German qualifier Bjorn Phau to launch his bid for a first US Open crown with a 7-6, 6-3, 7-6 win in the first round yesterday.
Just eight days after clinching the Olympic men's singles title in Beijing, the 22-year-old Spaniard sealed a hard-fought victory after just under three hours on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court.
World No 136 Phau held his own in the opening set ag
ainst the game's leading player before losing the tiebreak 7-4 but was swept aside in the second in 46 minutes.
Nadal, the French Open and Wimbledon champion, surprisingly double-faulted when serving for the match at 5-4 in the third before winning the tiebreak 7-4.
Elsewhere, former champion Svetlana Kuznetsova made a confident start to her US Open campaign with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Zhang Shuai of China in the first round.
The Russian third seed, runner-up last year, won a tight first set and eased through the second.
World No 243 Zhang, playing her first grand-slam match, matched Kuznetsova early and had a break point to level at 5-5 in the first set.
But Kuznetsova held on to take the set and an early break in the second put her on course for a place in the second round against Czech Lucie Safarova or Romania's Sorana Cirstea.
Olympic champion Elena Dementieva struggled to a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan. The Russian fifth seed saved two set points in the second set before clinching victory in one hour, 28 minutes to set up a second-round match against Pauline Parmentier of France.
Dementieva, runner-up in 2004, was made to fight all the way by world No 78 Amanmuradova, but one break gave her the first set. Amanmuradova led 5-3 in the second and had two set points in the tenth game, but Dementieva saved them both.
Lindsay Davenport enjoyed a brisk workout on her return from a two-month injury layoff with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Canada's Aleksandra Wozniak.
The highest-profile casualty was tenth seed Anna Chakvetadze, who collapsed to her earliest grand slam defeat in over three years when she was trounced 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 by fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova.
Roger Federer, bidding for his fifth straight US Open title, is scheduled to begin his campaign today, as are women's world No 1 Ana Ivanovic and the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus.
The full article contains 434 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
