This Time, Roddick Knocks Off Safin

First impressions on a sun-baked day at Indian Wells Tennis Garden were not only misleading, they turned out to be dead wrong Monday at the Pacific Life Open.

Example No. 1: Lleyton Hewitt of Australia took a 3-0 first-set lead against Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina and had the chance to go ahead 4-0. Hewitt rarely fails to take the foot off the accelerator in this kind of situation.

Not only did he stray from type -- dropping six consecutive games to lose the set -- he went out here for the first time in 14 matches. Chela beat the two-time defending champion and eighth-seeded Hewitt, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, in the third round. Chela called it one of his greatest victories. To put it in perspective, Hewitt lost the final set, 6-1, just one time in 2003.

Example No. 2: Andy Roddick gave his racket a hard toss after he missed a return. Roddick, it seemed, was unraveling quickly and he lost the first three games against Marat Safin of Russia. Oh, well, too bad. It looked as though the rematch of their epic quarterfinal -- which Safin won in five sets -- at the Australian Open would be a pale imitation.

Well, it was. Only Roddick was the one who came out ahead this time, not Safin. The third-seeded Roddick rallied and prevailed, 7-6 (6), 6-2. Roddick vs. Safin was entertaining for a set, and then the air and energy went out of the third-round match. A couple of Roddick volleys painted the lines in the tiebreaker and Safin simply could not erase the memory.

Safin’s face seemed to turn a deeper shade of red with each game. But the desert heat -- officials said the temperature was 102 degrees on the court -- did not unnerve him as much as the tiebreaker, in which he had led, 3-1.

“I thought just everything changed in my mind,” Safin said. “I was a little disappointed with the way it went because normally I would have to win the tiebreaker, and the match would go my way. I was really disappointed with these two volleys he made out of nowhere.

“And there is no chance that he could make it in all his life, these kind of volleys. They were just right on the line, just changed the match completely.... If they would go my way, it would be different story. I would beat him in two sets.”

Roddick, though, had to be given credit for going to Plan B when Plan A wasn’t working.

“I didn’t like what I was seeing from myself from the baseline early on,” Roddick said. “I didn’t like what I was seeing on his side of the net because he was hitting it pretty well from the baseline. I definitely tried to mix it up a little bit more, maybe give him a different look.”

Those advancing with the least trouble on the men’s side were No. 1 Roger Federer of Switzerland and No. 5 Andre Agassi. Federer beat Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, 6-3, 6-2; and Agassi defeated Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia, 6-2, 6-4.

The most up-and-down contest was between Agustin Calleri of Argentina and 17-year-old Rafael Nadal of Spain. Calleri fought off two match points and finally won it on his seventh match point, defeating Nadal, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (10). Mardy Fish and James Blake, vying for the second singles spot in the upcoming U.S. Davis Cup quarterfinal vs. Sweden each won third-round matches. Blake defeated Gaston Gaudio of Argentina, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, and Fish beat No. 16 Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-4.

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Hewitt made mention of the tennis balls being used on the tour, saying they were getting worse and worse by the week.

“They’re massive,” he said. “They’re ridiculous. After like one game against a guy like that -- I’ve never played with balls that are getting that big. I thought the balls in Rotterdam were quite heavy till I came here.”

Some other players agreed with Hewitt. Federer thought that fact would have helped Hewitt.

“That’s what he said? Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Conditions are heavy these days. If you look at his game and my game, I think it should be better for him because he tends more to go into longer rallies than I do. But I think the ball plays fair. You have to adapt anyway. You have to play with what you get. I look and I don’t find excuse.”