Kuala Lumpur - American wild card Taylor Dent was his own worst enemy before finally getting a grip to squeeze out a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) defeat of Kazak Andrey Golubev to reach the second round of the Malaysian Open Monday. The opening-day near-debacle featured eight double-faults - Dent's seventh produced three break points to throw away a 5-4 lead in the final set - from the American, who missed more than two years of ATP played due to a pair of back operations which left him doubting his ability to ever compete again.
Dent, 120th in the world will next face top seed Nikolay Davydenko after the Russian's opening-round bye at the Putra stadium.
But Dent is hoping to get his game more in order before that meeting.
"Davydenko will make me play a lot of balls. He returns well and move fast around the court. I'll need to try to play my game and overpower him."
Dent said that he had a close call against Golubev. "I think I could have closed it out before.
"In the first set I broke myself and in the third, when serving for the match, I made two double faults. It was frustrating, but I am still working on my game, so I didn't get upset about it."
2006 Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis,another wild card entry, needed almost three hours to stop Lu Yen-Hsun of Taiwan, ranked 75th, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5).
He will next play either seventh seed David Ferrer of Spain or Russian Mikhail Youzhny.
Brendan Evans of the US earned the first victory of the week as ATP tennis returned to Malaysia after an absence of a decade and a half when he defeated fellow qualifier and compatriot Michael Yani 6-3, 6-4.
The event marks the start of a busy period in Asia, with a concurrent tournament running this week in Bangkok. Next week is a double-up between Tokyo and Beijing while the Shanghai Masters tops the bill in a fortnight.
