American fifth-seed John Isner came through a tough test against Paul Capdeville to adavnce to the second round of the XL Open yesterday.

Isner always looked like he would beat his Chilean opponent, but he made life difficult for himself during his 6-2, 6-7, 6-4 win.

"He (Capdeville) is a tough, consistent player," said Isner afterwards.

"So I'm happy that I beat him. My serve is a big thing for me and I always felt I was going to be able to hold on my own serve.

"He only broke me once in three sets, which is pretty good going.

"I was happy with the way I recovered as well, because I have lost my last couple of three-set matches. But today I was more mentally focused and that made a big difference."

Isner controlled the first set, and broke Capdeville as early as the second game when the Chillean double-faulted on his own serve.

From then on it was one-way traffic, and even when Isner looked like he might be in trouble, his second serve that kicks wildly when it works, was enough to see him through.

Despite sending down a total of 13 aces in the match, however, Isner missed too many first serves and may have been on the wrong end of a defeat had Capdeville had a little more belief in his own game.

Too often the Chilean spent the brief time between points berating himself and taking personal afront to even the slightest thing.

And despite winning a second set tie-break, he never really gave the impression that he believed he could win.

The third set should have been a comfortable stroll for Isner, and after he rattled off the first four games, it looked like it would be.

But then Capdeville held his own serve in the fifth game and broke Isner in the sixth when the American's serve failed him. He also missed a regulation missed smash that would have saved the game.

Capdeville seemed to find an ounce of confidence and held his serve again to put Isner in a dangerous position.

Isner, though, showed plenty of character to hold onto his own serve and eventually served out for the game with two aces and a couple of comfortable serve-volley combinations.

In the day's first game on centre court, third seeded Argentinian Sergio Roitman crashed out, losing 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 to Serbian Viktor Troicki.

Roitman should have won the match comfortably after being in complete control of his first set from which Troicki struggled to hit many winners.

The Serbian seemed content to let his opponent make mistakes, and Roitman wasn't about to oblige.

Then inexplicably in the second set it all went wrong as Roitman suffered something similar to the yips.

He lost all is confidence, couldn't make a shot and generally disintegrated on court.

Troicki picked his game up to a degree, but Roitman more than hastened his own downfall.