Lleyton Hewitt survived a late rally from Joao Sousa to reach the second round of the ATP & WTA Sony Open in Miami on Wednesday night.
The former world number one twice failed to serve out the match at 5-4 and 6-5 but went on to clinch a 6-1 7-6 (7/3) victory over his Portuguese opponent on his seventh match point.
"He played way better every time he was behind in the match," the 32-year-old Australian wild card said on atpworldtour.com. "Whenever he'd get back on serve in the second set, he actually played worse.
"When he was behind, he sort of just went for it a lot more. That was tough because he sort of had nothing to lose."
Hewitt will next face 11th seed Gilles Simon, who received a first-round bye.
Russia's Nikolay Davydenko suffered a wobble in the second set against Paolo Lorenzi but did not drop a game in the first or third, beating the Italian 6-0 2-6 6-0. World number 53 Xavier Malisse also needed three sets to get past Rajeev Ram, eventually progressing 6-4 6-7 (6/8) 6-4.
Czech Republic's Lukas Rosol got the better of Luxembourg's Gilles Muller 7-5 6-4 to book himself a second-round clash with world number one and top seed Novak Djokovic, while Russian qualifier Dmitry Tursunov will take on third seed David Ferrer after getting past American Tim Smyczek 7-6 (7/4) 7/5.
Frenchman Michael Llodra saw off compatriot Benoit Paire 7-6 (9/7) 6-2, and James Blake had little trouble overcoming fellow American Ryan Harrison 6-2 6-2.
Austria's Jurgen Melzer was made to work harder for his second-round spot, digging deep to topple Lithuania's Ricardas Berankis 3-6 6-3 7-6 (7/1).
Victor Hanescu also went through, as did Grega Zemlja, Tobias Kamke, Dudi Sela and Horacio Zeballos.
