Dent Wins in a Walk-Off for a Change

MELBOURNE, Australia —  There were the usual suspects, a trio you see so often on the first day of a Grand Slam tournament -- cramps, injuries and upsets.

Familiar acquaintances of Taylor Dent.

Only this time Dent wasn’t the one hobbling off the court. His opener at the Australian Open today at Melbourne Park was cut short when qualifier Fernando Verdasco of Spain felt ill and retired in the third set after playing 78 minutes. Dent won 6-2, 6-1, 2-1 (retired).

The last match Dent played at a Slam ended prematurely when he stopped because of a strained hamstring in the fourth round of the U.S. Open against Andre Agassi. His experience with injuries and ailments taught him not to take anything for granted when Verdasco was wilting in the heat.

“I thought, ‘Geez, not moving too well, not serving too big, so something must be wrong,’ ” said Dent, from Huntington Beach. “Then he took that long break, 15 minutes or so. I was thinking, ‘Don’t count on him retiring.’ It’s the worst thing I can do is say, ‘He’s going to retire for sure.’ Because then he starts playing, plays better.”

It was one of several shortened matches on the first day.

A day before the tournament, Andy Roddick and Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco were on a nationally televised program to promote the Open, rehashing and reliving their five-hour epic quarterfinal last year, which Roddick won, 21-19, in the fifth set.

Hopes of a rematch had been raised with the possibility of their playing in the fourth round. That expectation took all of five games to disappear. El Aynaoui, hobbled by an ankle injury, was forced to retire in the first set against Galo Blanco of Spain, trailing, 1-4.

The top-seeded Roddick faced a potentially difficult first-round match but won in fairly straightforward fashion against Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, 6-2, 7-5, 7-6 (4).

Roddick and Dent could meet in the third round. Dent’s next opponent is Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina, whom he has never played. “My history with Chela is I walked by him once when he was practicing, and gave him a dirty look,” Dent said, joking.

Dent’s father and coach, Phil, who reached the Australian Open final in 1974, was relieved Taylor had an abbreviated day on the tricky Rebound Ace surface, which had been claiming injury victims during the lead-in tournaments. Seventh-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain was the latest; he pulled out late in the afternoon, having twisted his ankle Saturday in the Sydney final.

The presence of Phil Dent as Taylor’s coach at a Slam is a new development, even though they worked together after the U.S. Open, resulting in back-to-back titles at Bangkok and Moscow.

His former coach, Brad Stine, appeared to have formed a successful relationship with Dent, judging from his showing at the Open. Still, Taylor opted to make a change.

“I just felt like my game needed to go a different direction,” he said. “It was nothing personal. I had one of the most fun times as a player when I was with Brad. We had a great time every week. But unfortunately I’m not here to have a good time. I’m here to win matches, so I did what was best for my game.”

The affable Dent said his father had “zero influence” on the coaching change, and Taylor seemed bothered that the relationship ended with injured feelings.

“I was a little disappointed the way it turned out afterward,” said Dent. “ I felt he took it more personally than I meant it to be. I feel very bad about what happened.

“Obviously, I must have said something wrong to end the relationship and he may have taken it the wrong way.”

And so he went back to the man most familiar with his complex game. Did it take much persuasion to get Phil to hit the road again?

“He didn’t have a choice,” Taylor said, joking again. “No, I just asked him if he wanted to do it.”

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The first round was not kind to former finalists as Rainer Schuettler of Germany (2003) and Arnaud Clement of France (2001) lost in five sets after winning the first two. Schuettler, seeded No. 6, has not won a match this year.

Two promising Russian women were gone by lunchtime -- No. 7 Elena Dementieva was taken out by Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and Montenegro, 6-1, 6-4, and No. 10 Nadia Petrova lost to Aniko Kapros of Hungary, 6-3, 6-3.

Top-seeded Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium had little trouble -- and that’s something of an understatement -- as she needed only 45 minutes to dispatch Australian wild card Olivia Lukaszewicz, 6-0, 6-0.