MELBOURNE, Jan 17, 2008 - Russian second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova admitted she had an off-day as she grafted out a hard-fought win over Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova to reach the Australian Open third round Thursday.

　　Kuznetsova started sluggishly but clawed her way back to a 7-5 (7/0), 6-2 victory over Pironkova, ranked 94 in the world.

　　"It was really hard, Tsvetana played really well and I just tried to stay in and play my best and in the end I came out a winner," she said.

　　The 22-year-old said her game simply failed to gel until the latter stages of the match, when she used her experience to draw the inconsistent Pironkova into long rallies.

　　"I didn't start well, definitely, (I'd) been messing it up and she'd been playing pretty good," she said.

　　"Then I was getting a bit tighter and I still didn't play my game. When I was down 5-2, 5-3, I felt I'm just not doing the (right) things.

　　"I think I just tried to put more balls in play and tried to make rallies long. She's not very consistent, so I wanted to play with her."

　　Kuznetsova said she intended to improve as the season-opening Grand Slam progressed.

　　"A Grand Slam is seven different games, some days it's very hard and you don't feel good, today was one of those days," she said.

　　"Definitely I'd like to play better next time."

　　Kuznetsova gifted Pironkova an early service break and took 16 minutes to get on the board at 3-1, looking out-of-sorts as her second service misfired and unforced errors riddled her game.

　　Pironkova, meanwhile, was so eager to exploit the former US Open champion's weakness that she dropped her racquet at one point stretching for a forehand return.

　　The Bulgarian had her opponent on the ropes at set point on 5-3 but could not land a knockout blow, instead rousing Kuznetsova from her stupor.

　　The Monte Carlo-based Kuznetsova rallied to take the next four games before Pironkova broke her again to take the set to a tie-break, which the Russian took 7-0 as she asserted her authority.

　　The pair exchanged breaks early in the second set but Pironkova's challenge had run out of steam and Kuznetsova claimed victory after 91 minutes.

　　She will play Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska in the third round.