By TERRY MADDAFORD
Top seed Guillermo Coria safely negotiated his opening match at this year's international tournament last night, but not without a fight before beating unseeded German Nicolas Kiefer in straight sets.
Coria's 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 win thrilled the almost-capacity Heineken Open crowd, with both players bringing their power to centre court.
The first set was an hour-long slugfest in which the lines on all parts of the court were under constant attack, leading to some controversial calls.
The set was eventually decided in a tiebreaker in which Kiefer lost the last three points.
Baby-faced Coria took the early advantage in the second set when he broke his 26-year-old opponent for 2-0 and again later en route to wrap it up 6-3.
Coria will now play the winner of today's centre court game at the ASB Bank Tennis Centre between New Zealand's Mark Nielsen and former winner Dominik Hrbaty.
Second seed Jiri Novak went looking for a decent early-season scrap in the second centre court match on opening day - and got it.
In his fourth match with 23-year-old Belgian Xavier Malisse, the 28-year-old Czech dropped the opening service game, but immediately broke back.
With a further service break each, the first set was decided in the inevitable tiebreaker which Malisse dominated initially before Novak, the 1996 Open champion, levelled at 5-5, 6-6 and 7-7 before Malisse snatched two points on Novak's serve to win 9-7.
The second set was more of the same - one break each, but with the tiebreaker won comfortably by Novak.
Malisse, broken in the fourth and eighth games of the third, bowed out after a battling 2h 13m effort.
Earlier, two players ranked around 50 in the world turned in an entertaining main draw opener, with Spaniard David Sanchez (50) beating American regular Jan-Michael Gambill (51) in straight sets after the first had gone to a tiebreaker.
Next up, hard-hitting seventh seed Fernando Gonzalez squared off against unseeded Dutchman Raemon Sluiter, ranked 24 places lower at 59.
Sluiter, resplendent in red shoes made for running and looking as though he would not be out of place in an All Black backline, matched his younger opponent in big shots.
Using his powerful two-handed back and forehand to good effect, Sluite got home 6-3, 6-4, with his only real problem coming in the fourth game of the second set when he was taken to deuce three times before winning to go ahead 3-1.
Sluiter later pointed to that game as a pivotal point.
"I had one tough service game, but it was a great match for me in that I didn't lose my serve," said Sluiter, who will now play Sanchez in the second round tomorrow.
The only other singles match, a back court affair between two of the lower-ranked players, produced an absorbing 2h 22m contest.
France's Gregory Carraz, ranked 67 in the world, got up to beat Slovak Karol Beck (one place higher at 66) in three sets.
Carraz served 14 aces, but nullified that with 16 double faults.
Beck kept himself in the match by taking the second set in a tiebreaker.
The third set was won by Carraz 6-3 to book himself a second-round clash with either fellow Frenchman Fabrice Santoro or Finnish eighth seed Jarkko Nieminen, who play first up this morning.
There will be a New Zealand presence at the Open until at least tomorrow with the right-handed-left-handed combination of Nielsen and Simon Rea through to the second round after beating the other New Zealand pairing of Daniel King-Turner and Matt Prentice 6-3, 6-4.
Tennis: Coria's slugfest thrills crowd
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