Federer Opens Hometown Title Bid; Baghdatis Overcomes Troicki

© AFP/Getty ImagesMarcos Baghdatis has a 27-26 match record on the season.

World No. 4 Roger Federer began his campaign for a fifth title at his hometown tournament, the Swiss Indoors Basel, with a 7-6(3), 6-4 win over Italian Potito Starace on Monday evening.

Starace held the only break point chance of the opening set, but was unable to capitalise. The third-seeded Federer won the tie-break and immediately broke his 54th-ranked opponent to start the second set. He claimed the victory after one hour and 18 minutes, improving to a 6-0 record against Starace.

Federer, who was playing his first match since representing Switzerland in the Davis Cup World Group play-offs against Australia in September, notched his 50th match win of 2011 - marking the 10th straight season he's reached that mark.

"Rust showed more on the returning side, trying to see the pace of the ball or being there and anticipating maybe was just missing a bit today," said Federer. "Instead of getting me 30-all chances, I was stuck at 40/15 very often and that’s a tough place to make breaks.

"In the second set I started to feel a bit better with confidence, first set in the pocket, but I still thought Potito played a good match and made me work extremely hard today."

He will go for his 40th match win in Basel (39-7 tournament record) when he plays either Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen, a recent finalist in Stockholm, or Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci in the second round. Federer has reached the final the past five years at this ATP World Tour 500 tournament, only failing to win the title in 2009 when he finished runner-up to Novak Djokovic, the top seed this week.

Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, the 2005 runner-up, earned a confidence-boosting 4-6, 7-6(8), 6-2 win over eighth-seeded Serbian Viktor Troicki earlier Monday.

Baghdatis converted five of seven break points opportunities for victory in two hours and 44 minutes. Troicki, a semi-finalist last year, won 59 per cent of his service points and hit four double faults. Baghdatis also beat Troicki in the recent Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur 2011 semi-finals.

Kazakhstani Mikhail Kukushkin stepped in as a lucky loser after Jurgen Melzer withdrew with a lower back injury, and posted a 6-4, 6-2 win over American Donald Young. Kukushkin went six for nine on his break point chances, while saving nine of the 12 faced on serve.

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