Nieminen turns exhibition game into tough five-setter before progressing

Next opponent in Jesse Levine of the USA

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Jarkko Nieminen looked like being the first player to secure his passage into the second round of the men's singles at the Australian Open on Monday morning, but in the end he had to work hard for two and a half hours to beat Frank Dancevic of Canada 6-3, 6-1, 5-7, 2-6, 6-1 and set up a Wednesday meeting with the young American Jesse Levine.
      Nieminen was among those first on court in Melbourne on Monday, playing on Court 13.
     
After seeing his opponent win his first service game to love, the 24th seed broke the Canadian in the third and ninth games of the opening set to take it briskly 6-3, and to mark up the first set won by any player in this year’s Australian Open.
      Things went equally painlessly thereafter, with Nieminen taking another break in the fourth game to put himself 3-1 up in the second set.
      Dancevic dropped service again in the sixth, and Nieminen served out to 6-1 to go two up (again the first two-set lead of the day) and leave his opponent a mountain to climb.
     
Barely 40 minutes had passed, and there seemed to be only one winner in prospect as Nieminen controlled every aspect of what looked more like an exhibition game than a Grand Slam match.
      Nevertheless, those who have followed Nieminen’s career over the years will know that he is more than capable of surrendering an ample lead.
      Any of those nagging doubts that he might rashly take his foot off the gas at this point were confirmed as the Finn collapsed at 5-6 to lose his service to love and give the Canadian the third set and a lifeline.
     
The warning signs had been there: Dancevic, ranked 74th in the world, tightened up his service game, playing less aggressively and cutting down on his unforced errors, and suddenly looked perfectly at home against a player who had beaten him on their four previous meetings.
      The fourth set was if anything even worse, and it was Nieminen’s turn to lose his way altogether and produce a string of errors. The left-handed Finn went 3-1 down after another break, looked to be going 1-5 down as Dancevic put yet more pressure on his service, and eventually succumbed 6-2 with Dancevic’s third break.
      Now it was Nieminen’s mountain.
     
With what had looked like being a pleasant morning workout turning sour, Nieminen then snapped out of his lethargy and broke and held immediately for 2-0, and went on to take the final set relatively comfortably.
      After the match he admitted things had gone wrong with his game-plan: "Of course the idea was to win it in straight sets, but it just didn’t work out. I let Dancevic get into the game too much and he took plenty of risks and they came off. I allowed him play the way he wanted, and it cost me two sets."
     
Nieminen will now play Jesse Levine, who had little trouble in disposing of Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina 6-1, 7-5, 6-1.
      The young American is ranked 170th on the ATP lists, but Nieminen is well aware of the dangers of looking too closely at numbers like that. "It was a lucky break that I managed to see Levine playing in Auckland last week. He is small and very quick around the court, and I expect that we will have a lot of longer rallies than today."
     
If he comes through against Levine, Nieminen will face either 11th seed Tommy Robredo of Spain or Mardy Fish of the United States (ATP-43).
      Robredo, who has not looked too sharp in his early matches this year, had a bit of a scare against Mischa Zverev of Germany, but eventually won through 4-6, 2-6, 7-6, 6-4, 7-5 in four hours on court.
      The biggest casualty among the men so far on Day One has been British hope Andy Murray, seeded 9th, who went down rather tamely to the improving Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Jarkko Nieminen to meet Frank Dancevic in Australian Open 1st round (11.1.2008)

Links:
  Australian Open: Jarkko Nieminen

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