Verdasco back from brink in Washington

THIRD-seeded Fernando Verdasco fended off two match points and narrowly avoided a second-round upset at the Legg Mason Classic yesterday, while Mardy Fish extended the longest winning streak of his career to 11 matches.

Second-seeded Andy Roddick had little trouble in his opening match, beating Serbian qualifier Grega Zemjla 6-4, 6-4 in the second round. Three-time Washington champion Roddick, who had a first-round bye, never faced a break point against Zemlja and didn't lose a point in his last four service games.

"I accomplished what I wanted to. I wanted to get in some rallies early, get my feet under me and move the ball around the court," Roddick said. "Basically get back to playing clean tennis. The things that don't necessarily show up on the stat sheet but win tennis matches."

In the final match of the night, fifth-seeded John Isner needed two tiebreakers to defeat Thiemo de Bakker, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (8), sealing the win with three aces in the second tiebreaker.

The last time the two met was in the second round of Wimbledon. De Bakker won that meeting, which came a round after Isner's record-breaking marathon victory against Nicolas Mahut.

Verdasco twice faced match point in the second set before coming back to beat Michael Berrer 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (6), while Fish, who is seeded 15th, beat Viktor Troicki 6-4, 6-3. Verdasco trailed 2-5 in the second set before winning five straight games to level it at one set apiece. In the third-set tiebreaker, he briefly sat on the court in pain holding his left foot after losing the 12th point. After the Spaniard rose, he won two straight points for the win. Also in the second round, fourth-seeded Marin Cilic defeated Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-2 and Xavier Malisse upset No 12 seed Julien Benneteau 7-5, 6-4.

In Tuesday's first-round matches, Marco Chiudinelli beat Brian Dabul 7-6 (3), 6-2; Janko Tipsarevic defeated Arnaud Clement 6-4, 6-0; Alejandro Falla won against Lu Yen-hsun, 7-5, 6-1 and Kristof Vliegen advanced when Richard Gasquet retired after dropping the first set 6-3.

In Copenhagen, meanwhile, Scotland's Elena Baltacha lost in the second round of the e-Boks Open, to Li Na of China, who coasted to a 6-3, 6-2 victory.