PARIS // Twelve years into Taylor Dent's career, tennis is still taking him places he has never been. This week it is the second round of the French Open. The American won a match at Roland Garros for the first time, and his reward will be a match today against Robin Soderling, last year's runner-up. Dent's attacking game is typically not well-suited to clay, but warm, dry weather at the start of the tournament has made the courts harder and quicker. He took advantage onMonday by beating Nicolas Lapentti 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (3), and he figures his aggressive approach might work against Soderling.
They haven't played each other since 2004. "My style is very unique to everybody he's faced," Dent said. "I'm not going to keep the ball as high as he's normally used to. I'm going to keep the ball a fair bit lower. "If the conditions are hot and I'm serving well, I'm going to be tough to break, even on a clay court. If I don't play a solid match, he might beat me up. If I do play a solid match, I feel like I'm going to have a chance to get a win."
The warm weather has given US men a shot at their best French Open in several years. Andy Roddick is in the second round after victory over Jarkko Nieminen, as is John Isner, the No 17 seed, who also reached the second round for the first time, by beating Andrey Golubev 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. Inevitably, another US hope was heading back home when Sam Querrey lost 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, 6-2 to Robby Ginepri in an all-American matchup, and Michael Russell is also out after going down to Florent Serra.
The longer-term portents are not encouraging for the American men, as only four have reached the third round since 2006. While the French Open has been their worst major tournament, Dent said it is wrong to think they don't care about Roland Garros. "It is a grand slam," Dent said. "We love coming over here and playing. There's no doubt about it, and there's nothing more that Americans love than to come over here and win matches. We always have that label, like, 'Oh, you're American. First round, see you later'. So I think we get a lot of pride from winning matches here."
Meanwhile, Andy Murray admits another five-set epic in round two could kill off his hopes of making the second week. Yesterday, Murray was getting over his marathon first-round win over Richard Gasquet, which saw him on court for four hours and four minutes. As well as suffering the obvious fatigue from such a gruelling encounter, the Scot was once again troubled by tendonitis in his right knee, which he is learning to live with.
The 23-year-old will not practise for his next match, against Juan Ignacio Chela, until late in the day to give his body as long as possible to recover. But the fourth seed accepts his upcoming matches cannot follow the same pattern as the Gasquet clash if he is to emulate or surpass last year's career-best run to the quarter-finals. "You obviously can't play that many five-set matches," Murray said. "I hope in the next round, if I play well, I can come through that a bit quicker, because it's important if you want to play well, here especially, to conserve some energy."
Murray lifted the lid on just how serious a problem his knee has become. "It's just something I was born with, and am just going to have to deal with for my whole career," he said. "It's a lot worse than people think. It hurts the majority of the year. It's a lot easier mentally than when other things are sore, because I've had it since I was 16. "It's not like I can do my knee a whole lot of damage. It's just pretty much tendonitis."
Indeed, Murray is confident of being able to nurse himself back to health in time for his match with Chela. "I'm going to practise late," he said. "I'll practise in the afternoon, so I can sleep late and eat a lot and just rest and recover." * Agencies
