Second seed Gonzalez labours to victory

Jiao Weiping/Xin Hua News Agency

　　By Nick Mulvenney

　　BEIJING, Sept 10 (Reuters) - World number seven Fernando Gonzalez made hard work of it but finally snared his first win since June with a 3-6 6-3 7-5 victory over Austrian Alexander Peya in the opening round of the China Open on Monday.

　　The second seeded Chilean had lost his opening match at all four tournaments since a third round defeat at Wimbledon, including in the first round of the U.S. Open two weeks ago.

　　"At Wimbledon I lost a really close match and again in Montreal, it's tough to keep on losing," he told reporters.

　　"But always in tennis there is another chance and it feels really good to win again."

　　For a while, though, he looked like extending his losing streak, frequently letting his dogged opponent off the hook with poor shot selection and showing few glimpses of the form that took him to the final of the Australian Open in January.

　　Peya, 147 places below his opponent in the world rankings, broke Gonzalez's first service and held his own with little trouble to go a set up as his fellow 27-year-old struggled to find any sort of rhythm.

　　"He broke me in my first game and I was 3-0 down in five minutes so it was tough," Gonzalez added. "Then he was serving really good. The first match is always tough."

　　The Chilean grunted up some more power and looked to be on track for the kind of comfortable victory the crowd expected when he broke Peya in the second game of the second set.

　　He continued to labour through his next four service games, however, before evening up the match courtesy of one of several successful Hawkeye challenges over the one hour and 56 minutes of the contest.

　　A break at 2-2 in the decider put Gonzalez in the driving seat but again he conspired to blow his advantage as he was serving for the match, slashing the ball into the stands in frustration after going long to hand Peya a break back.

　　That galvanised him, however, and he cantered through the next two games for his first win since his second round victory over Alejandro Falla at Wimbledon on June 27.

　　"I've had a long journey to get here so it's important for me to have a good tournament here," he said.

　　Sixth seed Lee Hyung-Taik of South Korea also progressed to the second round of the $500,000 tournament with a comfortable 6-4 6-3 victory over Gonzalez's compatriot Adrian Garcia.