The first match of the day saw Maggie Maleeva finally in action. It was immediately obvious that she would be playing against a Japanese player, as there was a huge Japanese crowd in the stands. The Japanese are very quick to support their player, but unlike many of the groups of people that came, they applauded also applauded the opponent if she came up with a good shot. For the duration of the first set, there were only about 5 people cheering for Maggie, but as the match went on, the shout of encouragement grew gradually.

Maggie won the toss and elected to serve. The first point was reflective of the match I'd hope it wouldn't turn out to be. There was a long rally in which both players traded shots from the baseline, and both didn't seem to want to make the first move. The point finally ended when Maggie hit a ball short and Ai was pretty much forced to come into net. Maggie tried to come up with the passing shot, but it landed in the net. Three unforced errors in a row gave Sugiyama three break points to open the match. Maggie settled down a little to play slightly better tennis, and managed to save the first break point. She also managed to save the next point, making the crowd a little nervous. A long rally on the third point saw Sugiyama get the point and the break for the first game of the match.

Sugiyama, however, got a little uncharacteristically sloppy, and couldn't capitalize on several game points. Maggie put her game plan for the year into effect, though, and started to play more aggressively. Maggie has had success when she's played aggressively, and since her run at the end of last year, had only gotten into trouble when she's tried to keep up with her opponents in rallies instead of taking the initiative to make the play. This time was no different, and Maggie not only managed to get the break back, but held serve at love.

Ai double-faulted on the next point, and Maggie played well to take control of the point early in the rallies. Unfortunately, trying to hit her shots deep, Maggie got a lot of her shots long. A bad line call against her didn't help either, and her service game went to deuce. Psyching herself up, Maggie played more cautiously on the next few points, and she got the break to go up 3-1. Ai's shots, on the other hand, were going long, and good serving from Maggie gave her another service game at love.

Maggie was now on a sort of roll, and even when Ai started to run her around, she managed to get to a lot of balls and recover in time to get back in the point. Maggie held three break points, and the crowd started to get more vocal. While the Japanese are usually rather quiet, there was a couple of guys who were rather loud, and this started to get the rest of the crowd behind Ai. Spurred on by the show of support, Ai picked up her game, and started playing flawlessly. She constructed her points patiently, and picked the right time to finish the point off. She actually saved all three double-break points. Maggie made an effort and got the advantage, but couldn't capitalize on her opportunity, and had to settle for only one break of serve.

Using her momentum from the previous game, Ai found herself holding three break point herself in the next game. Maggie saved two break points by getting her first serves in, but couldn't come up with enough on the third. Ai was now serving at 3-4. What seemed like half-hearted play, and a blown overhead from just inside the service line gave Ai her service game. Maggie got herself in trouble early in her game, down 0-30, but she got herself together and saved her service game. Both players went on to hold serve without much trouble, and the set went to 6-5. Ai served to stay in the set, and managed to do so convincingly, holding serve at love.

Maggie served to open the tie-break, and before anyone could blink, had lost the first two points on some careless shots. Once again, she tried to focus, and managed to even it up by taking the next two points. Two careless returns of serve undid her hard work, though, giving Ai a 4-2 lead. Ai started to take charge of the match, and held three set points at 6-3. She only needed one, though, as yet another unforced error from Maggie gave Ai the first set.

Maggie by now looked very annoyed at herself, and would talk to herself every now and then. What had a bigger impression, though, was the look on her face, showing that she was deep in her thoughts, thinking about what she had done wrong in the previous point, what she had done during practice, and what she had to do to turn the match around. She managed to go up 40-0 on Ai's serve in the first game of the second set. Just as quickly as she'd stopped Ai's momentum, Maggie started to lose grip of the match, and lost 5 points in a row to give the game away. Inspired by the crowd support, Ai made no mistakes and carried on in good form.

By this time, I had to leave the court for a prior engagement, but luckily, the match was on one of the screens in the room. I kept track of the match, and Maggie made a good effort to take it to three sets, but ran out of steam in the second-set tie-breaker, losing the match 7-6(3) 7-6(4).

Anke Huber was in the next featured match, taking on Kristie Boogert of the Netherlands. The now German #1 had a lot of trouble warming up, and some careless service returns gave Kristie an easy service game to open the match. Anke's troubled start didn't stop there; she had a couple of double-faults to start her service game, but if Anke was having a slow start, Kristie was having an equally bad one. Anke miraculously held serve, thanks to a string of unforced errors from her Dutch opponent. Anke wasn't hitting the ball as hard as she usually does, or even remotely hard for average standards, but Kristie looked like she couldn't judge the bounce of the ball from the topspin, and mistimed a lot of her shots. A few rallies in the third game went Anke's way, handing her a break on a silver platter.

Kristie soon managed to adjust to the spin and the courts, though, and got the break back. The next game was slightly better in terms of unforced errors, and the crowd was treated to some hard-hitting between the two players. There wasn't going to be any "pretty" tennis here, and probably the only reason the stands were packed was because Anke is pretty popular, and there were only one or two name players on court on the women's side. Jen Cap had just finished her match, and not expecting much out of this match, I decided to see how Adriana Gersi was doing. On the way, I stumbled upon Tina Pisnik heading to the practice courts with Jelena Kostanic. We exchanged hello's, and had a few words. By then, Anke had lost then first set 6-4, but had broken and consolidated the break to open the second set.

I went around, and managed to catch Rita Kuti Kis finishing off her surprise win over Jelena Dokic. I personally still stick by my opinion that Dokic doesn't have anything special to take her far in the game (as I have for more than a year now), and while many were saying that Dokic nay-sayers should eat their words during Wimbledon last year, we seem to still be justified by her performance here. I wondered what her response to this loss would be, and headed to the interview room to see firsthand. Little did I know what was about to happen. Jelena was scheduled to be at the interview room in 10 minutes, and I waited for 20 minutes, but there was no further announcement. The interview list was updated, and showed Jelena for 4:30, which was about half an hour away. I headed back out to the courts, thinking that maybe I'd come back later.

As I headed back to court 18 to see how Anke was doing, I was surprised to see her walking in the opposite direction, i.e. to the locker rooms, with her racquet bag and all. I should have checked the score monitors, because the German had become the first seed to fall, and had lost her early lead in the second set to bow out 6-4 6-4. A good portion of the crowd was still there, though, as Lina Krasnoroutskaia was scheduled to play her first round match against Julie Halard-Decugis. The Russian youngster was meeting a lot of expectations, and had taken out the qualifying draw's second seed, Katalin Marosi en route to booking a place in the main draw.

Julie, ranked #11 coming in to the tournament, however, was no pushover, and taught the #165 newcomer a quick lesson in playing the "big" girls. Lina wasn't making too many mistakes, but she clearly didn't expect so many balls to come back with such pace and angles. The match started off with promise to be a good one, with both players hitting well and running about the court. Julie Halard-Decugis opted to stay back for most of the match, engaging the youngster in baseline duels. Lina started to get frustrated by the end of the first set, and while she continued to fight for the points, she was clearly outclassed by the comeback player of the year. Before long, Julie had taken the first set 6-2.

The second set, though, saw better tennis from Lina. She had figured out how to keep herself in the match, and held serve to open the set. She also held one break point in the next game, but a questionable line call saved Julie a lot of extra work. Showing a little intelligence and maturity, she let the line call go and focused on getting the next point. She saved 3 game points, but gave Julie her service game on the fourth.

Lina held serve easily in the next game, and I headed back to the media room to see what was up with Jelena Dokic. To my surprise, Jelena Dokic was still on the press conference list. Now she was listed to appear 4 hours after the initial time stated. Apparently the time had been pushed back by half-an-hour 8 times already, and that gave me the impression that something was up with the teen. As it was already 2 minutes past the time stated she was supposed to come in, I headed back out to the courts.

Julie Halard was still on court with Lina Krasnoroutskaia. Julie was serving for the match at 5-4. A couple of good first serves set up 2 match points. Lina fought hard, and tried to keep up in the rally. Her effort paid off as she saved the first match point. Inexperience, impatience and braveness so characteristic of youth come through on the next point, though, as she went for a down-the-line winner without waiting to set up the point, and going for the small opening, hit it just wide.

The young Russian still has a ways to go with her game, and a year or two of experience is in order before I can make any assessment of how I think she'll do on the pro tour.

I headed off to see the ever-entertaining Natasha Zvereva in her match against Aubrie Rippner. Aubrie has been using the name "Brie" for quite a while now, but I'd rather not refer to her as a cheese. It's cute as a nickname, but it's just a tad odd for an "official" name. Look what happened to Steffi Graf. Forever branded as "Steffi" now, she once mentioned that she'd prefer to be called Stefanie late in her career.

Natasha was having another up-and-down day, and every flash of brilliance was followed by a careless error. Aubrie was playing a hard baseline game, and NZ played like she couldn't handle the pace. Amazingly popular wherever she goes, the crowd was just waiting to cheer for her. Unfortunately, they had little to cheer for. She had a brilliant streak, followed by a string of unforced errors to take Aubrie's service game to deuce. Squandering one break point, NZ finally got the break back and served to stay in the first set.

Finally waking up, Natasha played with a little more effort, and managed to hold serve. The first set went to a tie-break, but here, NZ had another lapse of concentration. She played horrendously after doing so well to stay in the first set, and quickly fell behind in the tie-break. Aubrie took the first set easily, with the score of 7-4 in the tie-breaker.

I headed off again to see what was up with Jelena Dokic. Lucky for me, about 5 hours after she was initially supposed to show up, she was finally ready to show up for her press conference. The room was packed, for the first time in the tournament. To everyone's surprise, before anything was said, Jelena started to speak. And when she spoke, everyone was a little stunned. Quickly scribbling down her words, it took a while for people to realize what she was saying, and I thanked my stars that I had taken the time to hook my recorder up to the mike just before the press conference. I could pay full attention to her words, and was appalled at the attitude displayed by this girl. If ever anyone doubted that Martina Hingis could be topped, surely this would change their minds. (note: by the time this report is posted, the interview transcript would have been available, so I won't bother doing it) It was obvious that I wasn't the only one there who was furious with the young girl, as the first question was posed. "Jelena, are you having trouble giving credit to your opponents at the moment?". If whoever it was hadn't asked, I would have.

The questions posed by the other reporters were rather representative of my own questions, so I basically let them do the talking and absorbed the whole situation. When the whole thing was over, the media room was abuzz, and I felt a sense of impending doom for the Serb cum Aussie heroine. Anyway, I figured that she was hot off a terribly disappointing match for her, and she would come back to clean up the mess she had left behind, after her doubles match if not the very next day.

Getting off the shock, I headed back to the courts, the whole situation still swimming around inside my head. Tina Pisnik was playing against another Russian qualifier, Alina Jidkova. Alina Jidkova, Lina Krasnoroutskaia, Elena Dementieva, Anastasia Myskina and Nadejda Petrova seem to be heading the contingent of Russian youngsters flooding into the tour. Having seen four out of five (Nadejda Petrova being the exception), they all have the same basic style, understandably, but while they possess the basic stuff that can get them through the juniors, they definitely have a lot of work to do to expand their use of the court and to open opportunities for themselves. Of course, this is a process that all players go through, and while the pace of the tour is becoming faster and faster, it will still be at least a year and a half before any expectations should be had for these players.

Tina got off to a good start, and looked like she was cruising when she went up 5-2 in the first set. Slowly, though, Alina started to find her range, and put up more of a fight. Tina had a little too much momentum to be stopped, though, and took the first set 6-2. She soon started to lose the pace, though, and Alina managed to keep herself in the match. The second set went to a tie-break, which narrowly went to Alina. She just managed to keep herself in contention, taking it 7-5.

At this point, Tina looked more and more like she was being left behind by the Russian girl. Similar to her singles match a mere 2 months or 3 tournaments ago in Kuala Lumpur, she had breezed through the first set easily only to find herself in trouble in the third set. Nothing she did was working for her, and Alina showed no mercy as she took the last 5 games in a row to wrap up the match. While Alina was signing some programs and tennis balls for a small group of autograph-hunters, Tina came off court looking dejected. Her support group was waiting, and were quick to comfort her.

I went over to the next court to catch the match between Kim Clijsters and Dominique Van Roost, which had drawn a good crowd. Kim Clijsters had taken the first set 6-3, but was down in the second set. Dominique didn't think much of losing to her junior countrywoman, and in addition to cutting down on her errors, she also forced a number from Kim. Dominique played her usual game, hitting her astonishingly hard shots, and Kim just didn't seem to be able to figure where she would go next. The younger Belgian was getting more and more frustrated with each point while Dominique went about her business. Kim didn't play as impressively as she did at Wimbledon or the U.S Open last year, and wasn't running around the court as usual. She actually looked rather out of sorts, and after threatening to upset in the first set, meekly conceded the next two sets 6-1 and 6-1.

By the time Kim Clijsters and Dominique were done, Anna had already bagelled Patricia Wartusch in the first set. The stadium wasn't as packed as I'd expected, but it was crowded enough. More and more people would file in during each changeover, and many were surprised to see that the match had already progressed so far. I had barely gotten my seat warm when Anna took the 12 games, double-bagelling her opponent, and was off the court after signing as many autographs as she could. Unlike Jelena Dokic, Anna was looking forward to her press conference, and was quick to come in after freshening up a little. Anna is very familiar with the extent to which the media can go, and managed to handle her conference very well. If there's one person who can be an example to the other players when it comes to interviews, it's Anna Kournikova. She had a bit of trouble when she first started, but has been absolutely marvelous in handling difficult questions, from saying "no comment" 8 times in a row to coyly avoiding difficult questions.

As I headed off to catch the next tram that rolled in, I still couldn't believe what I had heard from Jelena Dokic. Wimbledon may have been the best thing that's happened to her so far in her career, but it may well be the worst thing that's every happened to her. It cannot be denied that she had an element of luck with her during that run, and it's very obvious from her comments after Wimbledon that she believed that she had purely made it on her capabilities and her capabilities alone. It's troubling to think what mental anguish she may go through when her results continue to be far from what she expects in the next few months.