American top seed Andy Roddick barely scraped past Dmitri Tursunov, escaping with a 7-6 (8/6), 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (7/5) victory on Tuesday at the 600,000 dollar ATP RCA Championships. Roddick reached the third round at the expense of the 119th-ranked Tursunov, a California-based Russian who knocked Tim Henman out in the second round of Wimbledon.
Roddick showed more than a little rust in his first time back on the court since losing to Roger Federer at Wimbledon two weeks ago. He received a bye through the first round here.
Roddick, whose lone major title came at the 2003 US Open, is chasing his fourth trophy this season and has never lost a match at Indy since his first appearance in 2003.
But his third three-set opening challenge in as many years here gave him quite a scare.
(SECOND ROUND): Andy Roddick (USA x1) bt Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) 7-6 (8/6), 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (5/7); Greg Rusedski (GBR x7) bt Wesley Moodie (RSA) 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (9/7), 7-6 (7/2); Robby Ginepri (USA) bt Vincent Spadea (USA x8) 6-4, 6-3.
(FIRST ROUND): Jonas Bjorkman (SWE) bt Lukas Dlouhy (CZE) 6-4, 6-1; Giovanni Lapentti (ECU) bt Mashiska Washington (USA) 7-6 (7/3), 6-3; George Bastl (SUI) bt Jeff Morrison (USA) 6-4, 6-4; Jan-Michael Gambill (USA) bt Donald Young (USA) 7-6 (12/10) 6-2; Bjorn Phau (GER) bt Amer Delic (USA) 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 6-3; Noam Okun (ISR) bt Brendan Evans (USA) 6-3, 6-3; Paul Goldstein (USA) bt Alejandro Falla (COL) 6-0, 6-4; Rajeev Ram (USA) bt Sjeng Schalken (NED) 7-5, 7-6 (7/1); Andy Murray (GBR) bt Flavio Saretta (BRA) 6-4, 6-2; Kevin Kim (USA) bt Ivo Karlovic (CRO) 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-3; Marcos Baghdatis (CYP) bt Sebastien De Chaunac (FRA) 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.