Blake faces tough defence of Las Vegas crown

LAS VEGAS, Feb 26 (Reuters) American world number six James Blake faces a strong field, including two former grand slam champions, as he bids to defend his Las Vegas Open title starting today.

Blake, who missed last week's event in Memphis because of tendonitis in his wrist, beat former U.S. and Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt of Australia in last year's final and the two are seeded to meet again in the title showdown this week.

Under the round-robin format -- eight groups of three with the winners advancing to the quarter-finals -- Blake has a tough group, with rising Argentine star Juan Martin del Potro and Russian teenager Evgeny Korolev his opponents.

The 18-year-old del Potro ended last year in the top 100 and has been tipped as future star of the game by several top players.

Hewitt, the champion in 2000 and 2003, is grouped with veteran American Vince Spadea and either Swede Thomas Johansson or German Bjorn Phau.

The Australian has slipped outside the world's top 20 but though he was forced to pull out of last week's event in Rotterdam with a hamstring tear, said he thought he was ready to play well.

''During the Davis Cup (in Belgium), I was playing some of my best tennis,'' Hewitt said last week.

''I was looking forward to the following weeks and I had entered as many tournaments as possible. I wanted to get on a roll, get some rough matches under my belt.

''I was hoping to get onto autopilot and work hard. But again I'm fighting a niggling injury. I'm as disappointed as anyone that I could not play.'' ''But, I have a good group behind me and I have to deal with this as best as possible.'' Third seed Marat Safin plays in Las Vegas for the first time and the former U.S. and Australian Open champion will meet Austrian Stefan Koubek and either Russian Igor Kunitsyn or Canadian Frank Dancevic in the round-robin stage.

Britain's Tim Henman is due to make his first appearance of the year after injury and illness.

The tournament is using the HawkEye technology and the first three round-robin matches take place on Monday.

Korolev plays del Potro, Julien Benneteau of France takes on American Paul Goldstein and Spaniard Fernando Verdasco faces another Frenchman, Paul-Henri Mathieu.

REUTERS PM DS1150