Melbourne: Crunch time comes early for two of the giants of men s tennis withAndy Roddick bumping into Marat Safin in the third round of the Australian Openon Friday.

In the first of the high-profile showdowns expected over the next week, sixthseeded Roddick tests his progress under new coach Jimmy Connors against themoody explosiveness of 26th seed Safin.

Safin has struggled to five-set victories in his opening two matches at theOpen while Roddick had some drama of his own, being taken to five sets in hisopening match against French wildcard Jo-Wilfried Tsonga before a lessstressful four-setter over Marc Gicquel.

Safin, who toppled Roger Federer in a classic five-set semi-final on the way tobeating Lleyton Hewitt in the 2005 Australian final, plays his best tennis inMelbourne.

In his last four trips Down Under the 27-year-old Russian has been champion andrunner-up twice. He missed last year s title defence with a knee injury.

"It s very important for us, for both of us, I guess, who is going to bemore aggressive at the beginning of the match and who will take theopportunities and who will choke first," he quipped.

The pair are 3-3 in head-to-head matches with Safin coming out on top with afive-set win over Roddick in the 2004 Australian Open quarter-finals.

Safin s career five-set record stands at 26-11.

The Russian, who has also taken on a new coach with Alexander Volkov, has notedRoddick s improvement under the eight-time Grand Slam champion Connors.

"He s changed a little bit. He started to improve his backhand, and he splaying a little bit more solid," was Safin s appraisal.

"Other than that, he s using more of his serve and he s not running aroundthe baseline. He s trying to go forward and take position at the net," hesaid.

Roddick has been expecting to face Safin in the third round.

"When I saw the draw I expected to play Marat," Roddick said.

"I think we re both maybe better than a third-roundmatch-up against each other.But that s the way it shakes out. You know, we bothhave to deal with it. I m sure he s not thrilled about it either," hesaid.

Roddick, 24,points to an improvement in his two-handed backhand,court-positioning and mindset since he joined forces with Connors last July.

He went through the USsummer circuit with an 18-2 record, crowned by reaching the US Open final wherehe fell to Federer.