Australia's Luczak stuns Hrbaty in Adelaide

PERTH, Jan 1 (Reuters) Australian wildcard Peter Luczak continued his fine run of form with a straight-sets upset victory of fifth-seeded Slovak Dominik Hrbaty at the Adelaide International today.

In the tournament trialling the ATP's new 32-player hybrid round-robin format, Luczak recovered from a 5-2 deficit in the first set to prevail 7-6 (9-7) 6-3 and move closer to a place in the quarter-finals.

Luczak beat Argentine Martin Vassallo Arguello in the elimination round yesterday to earn his place in one of the eight three-player pools, and he plays his second and final group match against American Paul Goldstein on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old saved a set point at 5-3 when a mishit forehand dropped just inside the baseline and also recovered from 6-4 down in the tie-break to take the opener on his first set point.

Hrbaty, the world number 21 and a finalist at last year's Paris Masters, struggled to fight back in the second, hitting six double faults as Luczak eased to victory.

The Polish-born world number 166 said he thought the new competition format helped him relax.

''The pressure was off me and I could go out there and enjoy it,'' he told reporters.

''Even in the tiebreak when I was down six points to four, I had some strange feeling that I was not getting tight. It is good to know that you at least have two matches either way.'' France's Florent Serra made a solid start to the defence of his title with a 2-6 6-3 6-4 victory over Joachim Johansson, the Swedish former world number nine who has slipped down to 193 after a 2006 dogged by shoulder and elbow injuries.

Germany's Benjamin Becker, the man who ended Andre Agassi's career at the US Open last year, also went down to local opposition, tripping up 7-5 6-3 against Chris Guccione.

Former world number one Lleyton Hewitt's first appearance of the year was a losing one, the Australian and doubles partner Paul Hanley going down in two sets to the Czech duo of Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner.

His singles campaign gets under way on Tuesday against Serbian Janko Tipsarevic.

REUTERS SAM PM1530