American James Blake looked rusty before he rallied to beat unheralded Israeli Dudi Sela 7-6 (2), 6-2 in a first-round match at the Indianapolis Tennis Championships.Top-seeded Blake, ranked eighth in the world, hadn’t played a singles match since losing to Rainer Schuettler in the second round at Wimbledon last month. The 78th-ranked Sela led 2-0 in the opening set and had a 30-love lead in the next game before Blake improved.Blake took a 5-3 lead and had advantage twice with a chance to close the set, but couldn’t finish. Sela won the game, then took the next two to take a 6-5 lead. Blake tied it 6-all, then took the tiebreaker 7-2 to win the set.“There were still some testy moments out there, especially playing a tiebreaker after you serve for a set,” Blake said. “That can demoralise a lot of players sometimes.”Blake said his experience allowed him to keep his early struggles in perspective. He has won here two years ago, and has been in at least the quarter-finals in eight tournaments this season.Bopanna-Qureshi winMeanwhile, Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Qureshi stunned fourth seeds Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov in the opening round to advance to the quarter-finals. The unseeded Indo-Pakistani pair beat the Russians 2-6, 7-5, 10-6 and will now face the Australian-American pair of Ashley Fisher and Tripp Phillips.
