Federer beats American Harrison at Key Biscayne

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. — On the verge of victory, Roger Federer stopped playing when he thought a pivotal point had ended.

He mistook a fan’s shout for a linesman’s call, which cost him the game. Play continued for another 25 minutes before Federer finally closed out his opening match at the Sony Ericsson Open by beating 19-year-old American Ryan Harrison 6-2, 7-6 (3).

“I’d like to make it a bit more difficult for my opponent,” Federer said. “I was just completely confused about the whole situation.”

Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick won in more straightforward fashion, but two-time champion Kim Clijsters was eliminated.

Federer led 5-2 in the second set and had a chance to finish in less than an hour until he lost two fluky points that extended the match.

Serving at 5-3, Federer blew an easy overhead to fall behind 15-30. One point later, facing break point for the only time in the match, Federer hit a forehand that landed on the baseline.

A fan hollered “Out!” and Federer stopped. By the time he realized the ball was still in play, Harrison had won the point — and the game.

“It completely threw me off,” Federer said. “It’s the first time it has ever happened in my career. I was like, ‘That’s it? That’s a break point? This is how this is going to happen?’”

Harrison took advantage of the break, although he said he felt bad about it.

“Obviously I want to win every point the right way, and not because something happened,” the teenager said. “Unfortunately somebody interrupted play.”

After Harrison held twice to force the tiebreaker, Federer hit a spectacular lunging lob to turn a scrambling exchange his way for a 4-2 lead. Four points later, he closed out his 40th victory in the past 42 matches.

“I felt like I had to win the match like three times at the end, so I was relieved to come through,” he said.