Agassi gives huge start before win

Melbourne
Andre Agassi gave away a 51 point "start", a dozen years and 18 centimetres to Joachim Johansson ? and still handed him a beating in their third round Australian Open tennis match at Melbourne Park yesterday.
The 34-year-old American beat Johansson 6-7 (4-7) 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-3) 6-4 to set up a quarterfinal against world No.1 Roger Federer.
For Agassi, a four-time Australian Open champion, the match came down to weathering the massive Johansson serve, which produced a tour record of 51 aces, bettering the previous mark of 49 set by Richard Krajicek at the 1999 US Open.
Agassi's victory over an opponent who at 11 was seeded three places below him, followed the relatively easy progression of defending champion Federer.
The hottest grand slam favourite in the history of the game, Federer met surprising opposition from the unseeded Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus before emerging with a 6-2 6-2 7-6 (7-4) victory.
Johansson, who is 1.98m tall, serves from a height of more than three metres, which turns the geometry of the tennis court decidedly in his favour.
"All I could do was try not to be overwhelmed out there," Agassi said.
Johansson began with a 14-ace first set, knocked 16 serves past Agassi in the second and brushed home with nine and 12.
Federer, the undisputed world's best displayed flashes of fallibility in his match against the 19-year-old Baghdatis.
But on each occasion, Federer had an answer, even if he sometimes was fractionally late delivering it.
Federer led 3-0 in the first set and Baghdatis looked as though he would struggle to get on the board.
But the former Australian Open junior champion got the under-worked Cypriot cheer squad roaring encouragement when he broke serve and then made it 3-2.
The second set went according to script before Baghdatis loosened up and clearly began enjoying himself.
He took the third set to a tiebreak and had the audacity to lead 3-0 before the Federer cool froze Baghdatis out, allowing him only one more point.
Asked if his game was at a level to handle Agassi, Federer almost recoiled in horror.
"I don't know why you asked me a question like this," he said.
"I think I've proven myself in the past and I know my name's good enough."
He also made a point that, had it come from another player it might have had a whiff of arrogance about it.
"Also, I know on my day where I'm not playing perfect, I know I can beat him," he said.
In the women's draw a glum-faced Serena Williams admitted she deserved to lose after struggling past Nadia Petrova in the fourth round today.
The four women's favourites in the bottom half of the draw all advanced to the last eight but it was Williams, the 2003 Australian Open champion, who was finding it hardest to find any positives after grinding out a 6-1 3-6 6-3 victory over the No.11 seed.
Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova and US Open titleholder Svetlana Kuznetsova continued to fly the Russian flag for the new superpower of women's tennis, while world No.2 Amelie Mauresmo crushed yet another Russian, Evgenia Linetskaya, 6-2 6-4 to set up a heavyweight quarter-final with Williams.
The American committed 37 unforced errors and only got 53 per cent of her first serves into play against Petrova.
"My serve was horrible and I've been working really hard on it," said Williams.
"It's just that I'm a perfectionist and I played a really bad game today.
"To be honest, I didn't deserve to win the way I played."
Williams has won nine of her previous 10 matches against her next opponent Mauresmo, with the only loss coming on clay in Rome two years ago.
Sharapova, the No.4 seed, started slowly but was dominant when it mattered in a 4-6 6-1 6-2 win over Italian 15th seed Silvia Farina Elia.
"I just tried to tell myself just to keep fighting, to keep trying new things and just playing my game rather than worrying about what she was doing and how she was trying to play," said the 17-year-old.
Sharapova won 12 of the last 14 games to set up the all-teenaged Russian quarter-final against the 19-year-old Kuznetsova.
The US Open champion was rarely stretched in ousting yet another countrywoman, Vera Douchevina, 6-4 6-2. - AAP