Sophomore slump not part of King’s plans

Vania King was aware of the potential potholes in getting through the second year on the women’s tennis tour.

Knowing this is one thing. Artfully dodging them is quite another.

Which is why there was a sense of relief for King in getting through a difficult first round at the Pacific Life Open on Thursday at Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The 19-year-old from Long Beach beat qualifier Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, taking the final three games.

This doubled her main-draw win total on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour in 2007. King has lost in the first round three times this year and did not make it out of qualifying in Sydney or Tokyo. Her ranking, which had been 50 at the end of the year, dropped to 78 this week.

King spoke candidly about the inherent nature of sophomore struggles on the tour.

“You look at all the girls that come up on tour and the first year -- I went through the same thing -- no one knows you,” said King, who won a singles title at Bangkok in 2006. “You have no expectations for yourself. You can basically only go up.

“You play people and they haven’t heard of you. They think they should beat you, so they’re nervous and you play freely. The second year is almost always tougher. The ones that can keep their nerve and stay mentally strong do the best, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

That, and her own aspirations, have made 2007 all the more challenging. She reached the third round at this event in 2006.

“It’s a new year. A lot more people are looking at me than last year,” King said. “I have higher expectations of myself. I consider myself a perfectionist.”

To that end, she has been training of late with a mentor from her past, the venerable Robert Lansdorp, the former coach of No. 1 Maria Sharapova.

Pete Sampras once joked that Lansdorp made his sister, Stella Sampras, cry during lessons when they were children. His toughness, apparently, has been tempered but not his ability to fill his players with confidence.

“I’ve known Robert since I was 9, so I’ve gone to see him off and on for almost 10 years,” King said. “He used to intimidate me. Now I think I understand him better.”

The immediate task for King is a second-round match here against Ana Ivanovic. Ivanovic defeated King, 6-2, 6-0, in the first round of the Australian Open.

“First I’m going to try get a couple more games,” King said, smiling.

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Xavier Malisse, who lost in the third round here last year, pulled out because of an injured right wrist. First-round play on the men’s side begins today.

The seeded players have first-round byes, so Roger Federer’s quest to surpass Guillermo Vilas’ record of 46 consecutive match victories will resume this weekend.

The last man to defeat Federer, who is ranked No. 1, was Andy Murray at Cincinnati in August.

“It must be so hard to keep a run like that going,” Murray said. “When you’ve won so many tournaments and so many Slams, to keep yourself mentally focused for tournament after tournament is obviously great. It maybe makes my win look better against him now because since then he’s won, what, 41 matches in a row.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com