BRISBANE: Roger Federer was rusty in his season-opening match at the Brisbane International, and it had him in a serious sweat. The 17-time Grand Slam winner held his cool to recover from a set and a break down and beat Australian wild-card entry John Millman 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday. The weather was reasonably mild for subtropical Brisbane, where Federer lost to Lleyton Hewitt in the final last year. It was the hot reception from the No. 153-ranked Millman that troubled him for a while.
”I’m sweating like crazy,” Federer said. ”Under a lot of pressure. I think I got quite lucky in the second set. He was playing great tennis.” It was slow start for the 33-year-old Swiss star, who had a first-round bye. He wasted four break-point chances in an opening game that lasted seven minutes before Millman held. Federer was broken in the 10th game, saving three set points before hitting a swinging forehand volley too long to surrender the first set to Millman, who was getting raucous support from a parochial, hometown crowd.
The top-seeded Federer dropped serve to give Millman a 3-1 lead. But he broke back immediately, setting it up with classic one-handed backhand down the line, and saved three break points in the next game to keep it on serve. That’s when things started to go his way. Federer will face another Australian wild-card entry in the next round, after James Duckworth beat Jarkko Nieminen 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3. (Agencies)
