Dubai, Mar 03: Top seed Roger Federer of Switzerland beat Marat Safin of Russia to reach the second round of ATP tennis in Dubai.
Federer's serve was his only weakness against Russian Safin but it was able to get him out of trouble when he needed it. It came to his rescue at 4-4 in the first set, when the Swiss faced two break points that would have left Safin serving for the set. Four strong serves allowed Federer to hold, and he went on to dominate the tiebreak.

With Safin feeling fresher than he had during their Australian Open meeting, the two were more evenly matched and there were several furiously contested rallies.

Bureau Report