Veterans Win, Kids All Right

They aren’t quite ready for a casting call for a “Cocoon” remake or anything -- that would be a serious stretch -- but two guys with a combined age of 66 were the first Americans to reach the third round at the Australian Open today at Melbourne Park.

Todd Martin, 33, arrived first and was followed by another veteran about half an hour later, defending champion and 33-year-old Andre Agassi.

They got there -- true to form. Martin, via the tiebreaker, and Agassi, via the punishing groundstrokes. Martin defeated the gigantic Ivo Karlovic of Croatia, 7-6, (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7), in 2 hours 45 minutes, and the fourth-seeded Agassi beat 18-year-old qualifier Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, 6-0, 6-2, 6-4.

And to think it was nearly two years ago that the now-retired Pete Sampras joked that he and Martin were sitting around watching “On Golden Pond” during a Davis Cup week at Oklahoma City.

Agassi was asked about Martin, as in “another old guy that keeps going.” “How many sets?” Agassi replied.

Reporter: “Three tiebreaks.” Agassi, smiling: “Three tiebreaks. That’s a shocker. Karlovic playing tiebreaks.”

Karlovic, who had 33 aces, never lost his serve, of course, and had won his first-round match against Mardy Fish in three tiebreaks. Wednesday, both Karlovic and Martin were 0 for 3 on break-point chances, and Martin declared Karlovic’s serve to be the best he ever faced.

“I’d rather play Wayne Arthurs every day for the rest of my life than play this guy one more time,” Martin said, smiling.

Martin has spent most of his life as the tallest one in line, so giving up four inches to the 6-foot-10 Karlovic was novel.

“I think it’s the first time somebody’s been taller than me that I’ve played,” Martin said. “ ... I almost asked [Coach] Jose [Higueras] if it was right, because all my life the shorter guy was always faster. We played today and the taller guy was faster. I just felt like a bum out of luck.”

Later, Martin and Agassi were joined in the third round by the kids -- 24-year-old James Blake, 21-year-old Andy Roddick and 22-year-old Taylor Dent of Huntington Beach. Blake beat Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador, a semifinalist here in 1999, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-1, in 2 hours 39 minutes, and the top-seeded Roddick looked in convincing form, eliminating Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3, dropping only three points on his first serve.

Dent’s victory featured the most drama. He trailed two-sets-to-one against Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina and came within three points of losing in the fourth-set tiebreaker, taking the final four points and went on to win, 3-6, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5, in 3 hours 30 minutes. Chela has never won a five-set match, now 0-6, and this is the second straight year Dent reached the third round here.

In the fifth set, Dent had to find a new resolve. He faced two break points in the third game, erased them to hold, and then later squandered a 5-2 lead as Chela pulled to 5-5. But Dent held at 5-5 with an ace and then broke Chela at 30 to win on a terrific point, which ended when Chela netted a backhand volley. Dent double-faulted 16 times, and had 16 aces.

“My dad [Phil] seems to think it’s very important,” Dent said of his father and coach. “He thinks that I’ll look back on that and say that was one of my greatest wins.... I wasn’t playing my best tennis. There was a few things that were going against me. But I got by with smoke and mirrors somehow.”

The Dent victory means he will meet Roddick next, an intriguing third-round match.

“I see a great year for Taylor ahead,” Roddick said while the Dent-Chela match was still going on. “He’s got everything. He can break serve, he serves big. I think it’s just a matter of it coming together for him.”

Even Agassi was asked about Dent vs. Roddick. Then again, he was asked about almost everything going on in tennis as his news conference seemed nearly as long as his match. He covered the ongoing ATP drug controversy and the grief-stricken Victorian cricket team, whose coach David Hookes died on Monday after allegedly being assaulted outside a Melbourne hotel.

All the players are operating with increased vigilance because of the spate of nandrolone positive tests. Agassi gave an example of his caution and said he recently needed to use some lotion to help ease the swelling on the back of his hand.

“In order for me to put on a basic skin irritant cream, I had to fill out three pages of forms and get them faxed and sent and confirmed it was OK for me to put cream on my hand,” he said. “That’s the tough part about it. That’s the reality of the tennis players’ life. That’s how we’re tested.”

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Australian Open

* Today on TV: ESPN, 11 a.m. (delayed); ESPN2, 8:30 p.m.

* Men’s seeded winners: Andre Agassi (4); Sjeng Schalken (16), Netherlands; Gustavo Kuerten (19), Brazil; Sebastien Grosjean (9), France; Andy Roddick (1); Taylor Dent (27).

* Women’s seeded winners: Amelie Mauresmo (4), France; Eleni Daniilidou (19), Greece; Justine Henin-Hardenne (1), Belgium; Lindsay Davenport (5); Vera Zvonareva (11), Russia; Svetlana Kuznetsova (30), Russia; Fabiola Zuluaga (32), Colombia.

* Women’s seeded losers: Magdalena Maleeva (24), Bulgaria; Elena Bovina (21), Russia.

THURSDAY’S FEATURED MATCHES

* Filippo Volandri, Italy, vs. Juan Carlos Ferrero, Spain

* Kim Clijsters, Belgium, vs. Maria Elena Camerin, Italy

* Lleyton Hewitt, Australia, vs. Karol Kucera, Slovakia

* Venus Williams vs. Vera Douchevina, Russia

* Jeff Morrison vs. Roger Federer, Switzerland