Just before his game last Saturday, Number 10 seed David Nalbandian had his first round of the Australian Open. It was the fifth match on the Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park against French Marc Gicquel.
At the Sydney International Nalbandian defeated Jarkko Nieminen, a left hand player from Finland at a 2 hour and 15 min match. Nalbandian managed to overcame his inconsistent serves and unforced errors and resulted to a 6-3 6-7 (9) and 6-2. But even though he won, he had 56 unforced errors, compared to Nieminen, who had only 49. Both had 4 double faults.
Nalbandian was already ahead of the game during the first round. He gave up only 3 points in the second set before Nieminen attempted to break him. But Nalbandian served for a match at 5-4 until he won 10 straight points in the process. In the next service game, Nalbandian saved the three set points leading the game to a tiebreak. The players tied again with a score of 4-4 when the server failed to win a point.
Nieminen, who seemed to be experiencing a cramp in the leg, could not break himself free from the leading scores of Nalbandian until the last service.
Nieminen defeated Novak Djokovic, defending champion of the Australian Open in the semi-finals.