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Having to go through qualifying to earn a spot in an ATP Tour tennis tournament may seem like overly hard work, but it may well have been an advantage for those who made it into the Heineken Open field this week.
Of the four men who had to qualify for the tournament by winning three matches, three went on to win first-round matches at Auckland yesterday - and the only one who missed out was beaten by a fellow qualifier.
John Isner of the United States led the way for the qualifiers, becoming the only man to put a seeded player out of the tournament when he beat Albert Montanes of Spain 7-6 7-5.
Gilles Muller of Luxembourg made it a double for qualifiers on court four by beating Florent Serra of France 6-3 6-4, while the third qualifier through is American Bobby Reynolds, who beat fellow qualifier Oscar Hernandez of Spain 7-6 5-7 6-2.
With 24 of the 28-strong field gained direct entry to the tournament through either a high enough ranking or a wildcard, there is potential for the qualifiers to be a little tired when the tournament proper starts.
But as the Heineken Open comes at the start of the season, with many players having had very few matches in the previous two months - if any - the extra match practice from the qualifying tournament can be of benefit.
Muller, however, knows the benefits of qualifying at any time. Last year he became the first qualifier in nine years to make the quarterfinals of the US Open. He beat former top 10 player Tommy Haas and current number five Nikolay Davydenko along the way and it took eventual champion Roger Federer to put him out of the tournament.
"My three qualifying matches in Auckland were on three different surfaces. It was tough to get rhythm but I've been improving with all of them," Muller said.
Muller's biggest weapon is his serve and though he landed just 54 per cent of his first serves yesterday, he won 86 per cent of his points when his first serve counted.
He takes on another big server today, sixth seeded American Sam Querrey, and few people are expecting long rallies.
Match practice paid off for the qualifiers but it proved too tough for former champion Dominik Hrbaty as his early matches this year were combined with the extra exhaustion of travel.
Hrbaty, a former dual winner in Auckland, helped his country Slovakia win the Hopman Cup teams event in Perth at the weekend but he had to travel to New Zealand the day after his triumph and was feeling tired by the time he took the court.
He was also unfortunate enough to be taking on defending champion Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, who was close to his best yesterday. The match was over in 52 minutes, Kohlschreiber winning 6-1 6-2.
"In the last few nights in Perth I went to sleep at four in the morning and with the flight after that it was tough," Hrbaty said.
"But Philipp played very well. He hit the ball very hard and I didn't get any rhythm in my game."
Facing the opposite problem today are the top four seeds, who earned direct paths into the second round due to their seedings.
Of the trio only third seed Robin Soderling has played any competitive singles matches this year, winning twice before going out in the quarterfinals of the Brisbane tournament last week. He plays Reynolds today.
Second seed David Ferrer and fourth seed Nicolas Almagro, both of Spain, got good court time yesterday when winning their respective doubles matches in super tiebreaks.
For top seed Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina, however, today's match will be his first of any kind in 2009, and his opponent Ernests Gulbis of Latvia looks to have the talent to test him judging by his first-round victory yesterday.
- NZPA
