Melbourne, January 17:

Marcos Baghdatis pulled out some old magic to beat former No 1 Marat Safin 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2 on Thursday at the Australian Open, evoking memories of his run to the 2006 final.

The matchup was packed with drama — long rallies, seemingly impossible winners and shifts in momentum. Baghdatis appeared to be on his way to a straight-sets victory, looked down and out, then pulled himself together to set up a third-round meeting with another former No 1 Lleyton Hewitt.

Earlier, Venus Williams overcame a lethargic outing, committing 44 unforced errors and dropping her serve four times in a row, to beat Camille Pin 7-5, 6-4, while top-seeded Roger Federer was impressive again in ending friend Fabrice Santoro’s record 62nd Grand Slam tournament 6-1, 6-2, 6-0.

The match went by so fast that Santoro asked Federer to wait a moment on match point, pointing to the scoreboard and smiling. The Swiss star got a chuckle out of it, too, then got in a serve-and-volley winner with Santoro inching closer to the service line. Dictating play, Federer ended up with 53 winners and 18 unforced errors.

Williams looked stiff, sluggish and out of sorts, trudging back to the baseline in growing bewilderment as she sprayed balls all over the court. Clearly trying to win points as quickly as possible, she ventured to the net 39 times and often went for high-risk winners.

Pin pulled ahead 5-4 in the first set, only to see the American pull herself together long enough to take the last three games. Williams also ran off the last four games of the second set after falling behind 2-4. Williams now plays No 31 Sania Mirza of India who ousted Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 6-1, 4-6, 7-5.

Second-ranked Svetlana Kuznetsova rallied from 5-2 down in the first set to win in straight sets against Tsvetana Pironkova. Other women’s seeded players advancing were No 4 Ana Ivanovic, No 6 Anna Chakvetadze, No 9 Daniela Hantuchova and No 14 Nadia Petrova.

Joining Federer in the third round were No 3 Novak Djokovic, No 5 David Ferrer, No 7 Fernando Gonzalez, No 10 David Nalbandian, No 12 James Blake, No 13 Tomas Berdych and former No 1-ranked Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Nalbandian, who beat Federer and second-ranked Rafael Nadal to win consecutive tournaments in Paris and Madrid last October, had a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-1 win over Australian Peter Luczak.