The South Region's top seed needed 17 points from Jeff Withey, and a series of foul shots from Ben McLemore and Naadir Tharpe down the stretch, to hold off scrappy Western Kentucky 64-57 Friday night and avoid another upset on a day full of them in the NCAA tournament.
Federer faced 10 break points against the third seed as his serve let him down badly, his 55 per cent of first serves paling in comparison to Davydenko's 79 per cent.