Fourth-seeded del Potro beat his 30-year-old American rival 6-4, 6-7 (3), 5-7, 6-3, 10-8 in 4 hours, 17 minutes on Hisense Arena, the second showcourt at Melbourne Park, to advance to the third round.
Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick continued their paths toward a possible semifinal matchup.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad hereBut the thread that ties Nadal and Roddick together from 2009 — Roger Federer, who beat Roddick in the semis last year before losing to Nadal in the final — will likely still have something to say about who the eventual champion is on Jan. 31. The top-seeeded Swiss star is on the other side of the draw and couldn’t meet either Nadal or Roddick until the final.
Nadal breezed to a 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 second-round win over Lukas Lacko of Slovakia while Roddick was defeated Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
Britain’s Andy Murray, who could meet Nadal in the quarterfinals, advanced to the third round after beating Marc Gicquel of France 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. Murray is attempting to win his first Grand Slam title and become the first British man in more than 70 years to win a singles major.
Del Potro, who beat Federer in last year’s U.S. Open final, had a chance to serve for the match at 6-5 in the fifth after breaking Blake. However, Blake broke back immediately, helped by two errors from the 21-year-old Argentine.
Del Potro again broke Blake for a 9-8 lead and another chance to serve it out. He closed with a big serve out to Blake’s backhand side on his first match point.
Blake fell to 4-13 in five-set matches.
“It’s tough to rank them,” Blake said of his losses in five sets. “But right now it hurts pretty bad.”
Del Potro has been bothered by tendinitis in his right wrist that first cropped up late last year and caused him to pull out of the semifinals of the Kooyong exhibition tournament last week.
When asked if he was in pain, he said: “A little bit. But I can play.”
Roddick argued with the chair umpire, Fergus Murphy of Ireland, over a disputed call at a critical time that was ruled out when it was eventually shown to be in. Roddick felt he possibly could have returned the ball if it had not been called out, and let the umpire know in no uncertain terms.
The Hisense Arena crowd didn’t appreciate Roddick continuing the verbal jousting with Murphy after the match ended and booed the American.
The former No. 1-ranked Roddick took time to review video after the match, and was conciliatory in a news conference that followed.
“To be fair, I was more wrong than I thought I was out on court,” Roddick said. “It was a lot closer than I thought as far as when the call came. I thought I was going to be 100 percent right.”
Nadal, who converted five of his first six break-point chances, had no such dramas.
“I played a serious match. I think I played the match I needed to play,” the six-time Grand Slam winner said. “I was playing, moving well in the beginning without mistakes, having control of the ball.”
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