The back problems which forced Chile's Marcelo Rios, the number one seed, and Croatia's Goran Ivanisevic, the 11th seed, out of the Australian Open before they hit a ball, threatened to end Greg Rusedski's challenge prematurely yesterday before he eventually defeated Australia's Scott Draper 7-6, 2-6, 64, 7-6 in the first round.
The British number two has been suffering from back twinges and, when 4-1 down in the second set and struggling badly, received manipulative treatment while lying on the side of the court, and then hastily swallowed a brace of anti-inflammatory pills.
Tentative and restricted during a first set which remained on serve until the tie-break, Rusedski clinching it 7-3 with a smash off the frame. "When you buy your own rackets," he reasoned, "you might as well use all of them."
He was then broken to love at the start of the second set and his inability to chase Draper's richly varied ground strokes became more and more obvious. He was also being constantly heckled by a Draper fan, which prompted Rusedski to make an official request that the man be told to pipe down.
This was quickly achieved but it took Rusedski some seven minutes to get his back treated, during which time he sat on his chair looking decidedly miserable. His mind must have strayed back to last year's abortive first-round match at Wimbledon when an ankle injury forced him to retire against Draper's elder brother Mark.
"Fortunately the back loosened up, so I let the second set go and then really got focused for the third and fourth," Rusedski explained. A capricious, swirling wind, so typical of this tournament, made control for both players exceedingly difficult, although it was not particularly hot.
Draper suddenly produced three superb returns of serve, crisp and low, to put Rusedski's serve in severe jeopardy in the third set, but at 0-40 he recovered wonderfully well and saved the game, gaining a significant boost.
The Australian left-hander, the winner at Queen's last year, lacks the temperament to match his considerable talent and tends to flake under pressure. Rusedski applied it and another winner off the frame clinched the set. Thereafter his manoeuvrability increased with his confidence and, despite two double faults in the second tie-break, Rusedski finished a comfortable winner.
The day's major shock occurred not long before dusk when Carlos Moya, the French Open champion seeded fourth here, was knocked out by Germany's Nicolas Kiefer amid wails of dismay from the Spaniard's many female fans.
This was always likely to be a tricky match for Moya, the beaten finalist here two years ago. Kiefer, 21, has a very similar style to Agassi and reached the last eight here last year. He is richly gifted but another prone to buckle under pressure. Not this time. He matched Moya's ground-strokes while creating that extra bit of zip, or deftness of angle, at critical moments.
This display was later eclipsed under the floodlights when Australia's 17-year-old Lleyton Hewitt, who two years ago had become the youngest qualifier in the event's history, won his first Grand Slam match with a crushing straight-sets win by 6-3, 6-1, 61 over France's Cedric Pioline, the 15th seed.
