Victories Worth Shouting About

MELBOURNE, Australia —  He screamed at himself in Russian. She berated herself in English and looked annoyed and unhappy.

If you thought Marat Safin and Lindsay Davenport were having bad days and were on their way out of the Australian Open, well, that certainly would be an educated guess.

But only partially correct.

They struggled but had enough power and experience to stay around for another day. The fifth-seeded Davenport erased a 1-4 first-set deficit to beat fellow American Laura Granville, 6-4, 6-0, in 66 minutes, finishing it off with a big serve and forehand winner and walking to the net looking anything but thrilled.

Davenport said she “just really didn’t have the right energy going out there.... I can’t afford to keep going through patches like that. I was able to work myself out of it today and ended up hitting the ball a lot better.”

Andre Agassi could hardly have hit the ball better than he did in a 6-0, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Tomas Enqvist of Sweden. He has lost only 20 games and no sets in three matches.

Earlier, in Rod Laver Arena, the emotional Safin defeated Todd Martin in the most intriguing men’s match today, winning, 7-5, 1-6, 4-6, 6-0, 7-5, in 3 hours 25 minutes and eliminating the possibility of another all-American confrontation.

Safin, who reached the final here in 2002, will play James Blake next. Blake had one of the easier routes to the fourth round, defeating qualifier Olivier Patience of France, 6-1, 6-3, 6-2. He was later joined in the fourth round by another American, Robby Ginepri, who was nearly as impressive against a more experienced opponent.

Ginepri defeated wild-card entrant Nicolas Escude of France, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, in 1 hour 35 minutes and will face either ninth-seeded Sebastien Grosjean of France or Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia in the fourth round. Escude had come to Melbourne in strong form. He won a tournament earlier this month in Qatar without losing a set.

But Ginepri has been in devastating form, having not dropped a set in three rounds. His previous best showing at the Australian Open was reaching the second round last year and he spoke about the rise of the young American players.

“We’ve all been going at the same kind of rate apart from Andy [Roddick], who is ahead of us,” Ginepri said. “And it’s been good to see all my friends doing well. But it’s even better to see myself right there along with them.

The success of Ginepri, Blake and Taylor Dent has made things more difficult for U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe, in terms of selecting a second singles player on the team to accompany Roddick for next month’s first round against Austria.

“Yeah, we want to make his job tough, make him earn those big bucks he’s getting,” Blake said, joking. “We all really like to think that it’s hopefully a good problem to have, that he’s got quite a few guys that are playing some of their better tennis.

“And we’re also very conscious of the fact that he does have a tough choice, but whatever choice he makes, we’re going to be happy for that person he picks or those people that he picks, because he’s got, you know, the No. 1 player in the world, the No. 1 doubles team in the world, and then four or five guys that are playing some great tennis.”

Martin, at 33, has not been part of the Davis Cup conversation for quite some time and is the first to admit it, saying: “Unfortunately, I doubt Patrick McEnroe is too interested in me. But you know I’ll keep plugging away. ... Maybe I’ll have a purpose to serve later in the year.”

He could take satisfaction in pushing Safin to the limit. Few would have expected Martin to do so well after taking about four months off after the U.S. Open. He toyed with the idea of retirement last year before the U.S. Open and said Friday that he “wouldn’t be a bit surprised” if this were his last year.

Though Safin was visibly rattled, having lost the second and third sets, he pulled himself together, despite the outbursts in Russian.

“I think Marat recognized I was playing very well,” Martin said. “Unfortunately, [he] wasn’t blaming himself as much as I would have liked him to. After I got up an early break in the third, he sort of righted his ship a bit and played a fairly good set. I think that really helped him.”

*

Australian Open

* Today on TV: ESPN, 11 a.m. (delayed); ESPN2, 8 p.m.

* Men’s third-round seeded winners: Paradorn Srichaphan (13), Thailand, def. Gustavo Kuerten (19); Robby Ginepri (32); Andre Agassi (4).

* Women’s third-round seeded winners: Justine Henin-Hardenne (1), Belgium; Vera Zvonareva (11), Russia; Fabiola Zuluaga (32), Colombia; Amelie Mauresmo (4), France; Lindsay Davenport (5).

SATURDAY’S FEATURED MATCHES

* Todd Reid, Australia, vs. Roger Federer, Switzerland.

* Lisa Raymond vs. Venus Williams.

* Lleyton Hewitt (15), Australia, vs. Rafael Nadal, Spain.

* Dinara Safina, Russia, vs. Kim Clijsters (2), Belgium.

* David Nalbandian (8), Argentina, vs. Wayne Ferreira (31), South Africa.

* Joachim Johannson, Sweden, vs. Juan Carlos Ferrero (3), Spain.

* Anastasia Myskina (6), Russia, vs. Maria Sharapova (28), Russia.

* Guillermo Canas, Argentina, vs. Tim Henman (11), Britain.