Johansson, a former top-10 player, served 19 aces but was undone by world number 73 Mayer who hammered 28 of his own.

“He served well but I served better,” Mayer said through an interpreter.

Johansson, now ranked 373rd in the world, looked as if he might pull off an upset when he pounced on a loose service game from Mayer before closing out the first set with an ace.

Mayer though proved too solid, outperforming the Swede in most departments.

In the opening contest Soderling overcame a mid-match wobble to beat Eduardo Schwank 6-1 7-6 7-5.

“I feel good,” said Soderling who will play alongside Robert Lindstedt in Saturday’s doubles. “It’s a straight-sets win and I have to be happy with that.”

BOOMING SERVE

Relying on his booming serve and powerful groundstrokes, Soderling downed his 64th-ranked opponent in two hours 30 minutes, blasting 17 aces.

He played a near-flawless first set, dominating from the baseline and never facing a break point.

The tenacious Schwank fought back in the second as he started to read Soderling’s serve.

Twice Soderling broke only for Schwank to break back. In the tiebreak the Swede found his form with an error-free display to take it 7-0.

“He was serving a little bit better than I expected and he was hitting the ball pretty hard,” said Soderling. “After the first set he started to mix up his game with some serve and volleys.”

Argentina are without fifth-ranked Juan Martin del Potro due to a wrist injury as well as world number 30 Juan Monaco.

They can, however, call on former world number three David Nalbandian who joined the team at the last minute after recovering from a leg injury.

(Editing by Tony Jimenez)

The author in full regalia

The sight of Nobel laureates and the great and good of Sweden dancing to big-band renditions of “The Theme from Rocky” or the music of Earth, Wind and Fire has to be among the more surreal experiences I’ve had in Stockholm. Decked out in evening wear, with their medals and sashes, they twirled, shimmied and occasionally bumped-and-grinded in the ballroom above the banquet hall, where the King of Sweden had recently toasted to the memory of Alfred Nobel.

Welcome to the glittering Nobel banquet, the grand finale of the Nobel Week festivities that celebrate achievements in the arts and sciences.

There was Herta Mueller, the Romanian-born German writer now famous for having stood up to Nicolae Ceausescu’s thugs. She is a small, slight woman with a very serious face. Hardly a surprise since she has had a very serious life. It was a point not lost on those who heard her speech during the banquet as she talked of friends who helped her on her journey and now lay in graves. But she was out there with the best of them, swaying to the music and occasionally revealing a smile.

I spoke to her briefly, to let her know that I had a close friend who had grown up in circumstances like hers, among the German-speaking minority who were second-class citizens in Ceausescu’s Romania. She was gracious and seemed bemused by all the attention she was suddenly receiving.

Mueller has taken full advantage of that attention to highlight the cause that matters to her, human dignity. She alone gave an extended speech to the 1,300 guests, a small break of protocol. The other laureates had brief, often humorous speech-ettes. Mueller described “the path of a child who once tended cows in a valley” all the way to the banquet hall that night.

Dedicating the prize to the memory of people whose lives were destroyed by dictators, she called on the world to fight dictatorships, branding Iran as one. Russia and China, she said, have only “cloaked themselves in civil overcoats”.

Mueller broke protocol in other ways – something she is clearly used to doing. Wearing black, as she has all week, is apparently discouraged for women at the Nobel banquet.

Others stuck more to the script, which calls for brevity. U.S. scientist George Smith, a physics winner, quipped that he has been thanked by so many people, from PhD students empowered by his research to television camera operators whose loads had literally become lighter thanks to imaging technology he invented. He shared the prize with Willard Boyle and Charles Kao. Their work in fibre optics and how to turn light into electronic signals ushered in the Internet age.

Ada Yonath, an Israeli researcher, might be considered the ultimate map maker. Her work led to the first atom-by-atom map of the life-giving ribosome, which makes protein. Cartographer or not, she let the audience know that she’s not so great at finding her way. She used the occasion to thank her driver, Nisse, without whom she said she would have become hopelessly lost in Stockholm.

Then there was Elizabeth Blackburn, an Australian-born American whose discoveries with Jack Szostak and Carol Greider, helped scientists understand how a strange-sounding enzyme prevents chromosomes from fraying. Put another way, we now better understand the process of aging. Blackburn chose not to talk extending our lifespans and picked a different subject: sex. In marvelling at the abundance of nature, she spoke about a tiny pond creature that has not two sexes but seven. “Who knows what’s going on under the water?” she asked.

The whole affair is a study in living large. Among the statistics: 7,000 porcelain pieces, 5,000 glasses, 10,000 silverware items, 11,000 imported flowers from Italy, 30 chefs and 230 servers. The servers march with military precision and everywhere you turn is something that reminds you that this is an evening where no expense is spared.

Then the fairytale is over and the next day it’s time to return the rented outfit, which in Sweden is called a “frack”. There are a handful of firms that make and rent them, including “Steens Herrmode”, which made mine. Lars Steen told me it has been in business since the 1930s when his father, a tailor, realised there was money to be made in the rental business. Despite the depressed economy of that time — or perhaps because of it — Swedes loved dressing up and going to fancy parties. Judging by Nobel Week, it’s pretty clear they still do.

Speaking at the Reuters Central European Investment Summit shortly after the Polish central bank kept interest rates on hold, Filar also said high levels of public debt were the main challenge facing Poland’s economy in the next few years.

“I am of the opinion that we are exactly at the level of interest rate which gives us the chance to achieve the (inflation) target, maybe already next year… I do not see a reason to reduce interest rates,” Filar said.

Reviving growth next year will put upward pressure on prices, said Filar, a member of the bank’s 10-strong Monetary Policy Council (MPC), adding: “I do not see significant rises in interest rates next year.”

Poland’s central bank targets inflation of 2.5 percent. In August annual consumer price inflation stood at 3.7 percent.

Earlier, the MPC left its main interest rate at a record low 3.5 percent, as expected. It has cut rates by 250 basis points since last November.

Filar said it would take a relatively long time before Poland returned to potential growth.

The degree to which the global crisis is constraining even Poland — the lone EU member to grow in each quarter this year — was highlighted at the summit by the region’s biggest builder, Strabag.

Thomas Birtel, who oversees the firm’s building business, said plenty of clients wanted to start projects but could not get financing. “It is more the banks that are reluctant to respond to the project than the developers,” he said.

In the meantime, Poland’s most pressing challenge was keeping a limit on debt, Filar said.

On Tuesday, the central bank said in a report that Polish public debt in 2010 would breach a key level of 55 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) that triggers cuts in public spending and would approach the 60 percent threshold.

DEBT

Asked about the report, Filar said: “Obviously the risk (of a breach) exists… However on the other hand, knowing the determination of the ministry of finance… I rather expect them to do anything to keep below (55 percent).”

Despite the approach of presidential elections in 2010 and parliamentary elections in 2011, Filar said he expected Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s center-right government to shun populist policies and to focus on building their fiscal credibility.

This week, the government approved a draft budget that envisages a deficit in 2010 of 52.2 billion zlotys, twice the level of 2009, and said it would aim to reduce the shortfall in 2011. Concerns over debt have pressured the zloty this week.

Ballooning debt and deficits have forced Tusk to abandon plans to take Poland into the euro zone in 2012. Filar said he did not now expect the country to adopt the currency until 2015.

“In my opinion, it is a possible and quite a probable scenario that Poland joins ERM-2 close to the end of 2011 and enters the euro zone in 2015,” he said.

A candidate country must keep its currency in ERM-2, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism grid, for at least two years before joining the euro zone.