Blake stumbles but not for long

Fifth-seeded James Blake overcame a shaky start to give sometime hitting partner Alex Kuznetsov a lesson in how to play at the majors with a 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 victory today in the second round of the Australian Open.

In the women’s draw, fourth-seeded Kim Clijsters and sixth-seeded Martina Hingis raced each other into the third round, coming at it from different sides of retirement.

Clijsters extended the winning start to her farewell tour, beating Akiko Morigami, 6-3, 6-0. Joking that she was racing to get done before Clijsters, Hingis continued building momentum in her comeback with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Russian Alla Kudryavtseva.

Blake and Kuznetsov have practiced together before, but never officially played.

Blake lost his serve twice and trailed, 3-0, in the first set to a player ranked No. 216. But he turned things around with winners off his go-for-broke style, and never faced another break point.

“I know how dangerous he can be,” Blake said. “I think maybe at that point he started realizing what he was doing, what court he was on and kind of the arena that he was in.

“That’s something I hopefully have going for me now, is a little bit of experience, and to ride that storm that Alex was kind of bringing to me.”

Fellow American Mardy Fish followed his upset over fourth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic with a 7-5, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 win over Nicolas Mahut.

Marat Safin, the 2005 champion, survived a cramping Dudi Sela, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-0, to set up a third-round match against the sixth-seeded Andy Roddick. Marcos Baghdatis lost to Gael Monfils, 7-6 (5), 6-2, 2-6, 6-0, after a celebrated run to the final last year.

The 23-year-old Clijsters, who has announced she is retiring after this season to start a family, recovered from an inconsistent first set to run through the second.

“I won in two pretty easy sets, so I’m not complaining,” she said after finishing in just under an hour.

That was nine minutes faster than Hingis, who lost a little time when she was broken while serving for the match at 5-1.

Hingis’ comeback to the Australian Open last year ended in a quarterfinal loss to Clijsters. A rematch looms again in the quarterfinals, and Hingis is expecting more of herself this time.

“Everybody expects me to get to the quarterfinals, whereas last year every match was a big win, big victory,” Hingis said. “I definitely expect that from myself, as well.”

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Pete Sampras was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

The owner of a record 14 men’s singles Grand Slam championships is joined by Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Sven Davidson and Russ Adams.

They’ll be inducted July 14 in Newport, R.I.