No. 5 seed Soderling advances at U.S. Open

Off-Broadway - which is to say, not in Arthur Ashe Stadium during the U.S. Open Monday - some familiar names and character actors also were on stage at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

Just steps from the Ashe stage door used by five-time champion Roger Federer for his late-night dismantling of 96th-ranked Argentine Brian Dabul, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2, Sweden's Robin Soderling, Federer's conqueror in this year's French Open, prevailed in a five-act drama against Austria's Andreas Haider-Maurer on the Grandstand court.

And Australian Lleyton Hewitt, the 2001 Open champ, fell in five sets to France's Paul-Henri Mathieu, ranked 109th, in Louis Armstrong Stadium - the first time Hewitt ever lost in the tournament's first round.

Soderling, seeded fifth, wasted four match points in the third set but eventually held on, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (2), 5-7, 6-4. "Of course, I wanted to finish the match [in the third]," Soderling said. "But it's better to win in five than lose in five. I mean, I had almost four good hours of practice, so it's not so bad."

Soderling's next opponent will be Taylor Dent, the 29-year-old American who last year made a surprise run to the Open's third round after a two-year absence for back surgery. Dent knocked off Colombia's Alejandro Falla, ranked seven places higher than Dent's No. 72, 6-4, 7-5, 6-1, and then said he will not be emphasizing weight-loss programs similar to fellow Yanks Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish.

In action on the other outside courts, Croatian Marin Cilic, seeded 11th, an Open quarterfinalist last year, won in straight sets over Ukraine's Illya Marchenko, ranked 73rd. Theimo de Bakker of the Netherlands, the world's No. 48 player whose claim to fame was dismissing American John Isner from Wimbledon the day after Isner's 70-68 fifth-set victory over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, was a straight-sets victor over France's Marc Giocquel, ranked 170th.

Americans Michael Russell (to No. 6 seed Nikolay Davydenko), Robert Kendrick (to No. 17 Gael Monfils) and Ryan Sweeting (to 124th-ranked Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis) all lost.