Tennis: Top Heineken seed struggles through to second round

12.55pm

Top seed and world No 7 Jiri Novak almost crashed out of the second round of the Heineken Open men's tennis tournament in Auckland today.

The Czech Republic player eventually edged American qualifier Robby Ginepri 1-6 7-6(6) 6-3 in one of the early feature games today.

Ginepri at 102 on the entry ranking list, ran Novak ragged in the first set winning 6-1.

In fact Novak did not make it on to the scoreboard until the sixth game of the first set.

In the second set Ginepri was ahead 4-1 before the top seed was able to hit back and somehow force a tiebreak.

Novak saved one match point at 6-5 down in the second set tiebreak before serving his way out of trouble to win the set 8-6 and then run away with the third set.

Novak now plays Spain's Felix Mantilla in the quarterfinals.

Mantilla beat former Auckland finalist Kenneth Carlsen in straight sets.

Early results:

Jiri Novak(Cze) bt Q-Robby Ginepri(US) 1-6 7-6(6) 6-3

David Ferrer(Esp) by 3-F Gonzalez(Chi) 6-4 6-3 Felix Mantilla(Esp) bt Kenneth Carlsen(Den) 6-4 6-4.

- NZPA