Ivanisevic Stumbles At The First Hurdle
by Prip
The first day of qualifying in the first Grand Slam of the
millennium, and both the men's and women's draws would feature
some interesting players. On the women's side, Lina Krasnoroutskaya
of Russia, the much-touted 16-year-old, has thus far failed to come up
with anything spectacular, and while bound by the Age Eligibility
Rules, nothing spectacular is simply not good enough to get places.
Seeded third in qualifying behind Alison Bradshaw and Andrea Glass,
she hardly blinked against Aussie wildcard Jaslyn Hewitt, whose
brother would get through to the semis to play Sebastien Grosjean in
Sydney. In fact, the surprises were few in the women's qualifying
draw, with the only upsets coming at the bottom of the draw. Not
surprisingly, eleventh seed Sandra Cacic fell to rookie Maria Emilia
Salerni (who is on the 2001
list of Players to Watch), while Alena Vaskova lost to Saori
Obata after putting up a solid performance against Elena Bovina in
Sydney. Belgium's Laurence Courtois had a long match before falling
7-5 5-7 7-5 to Dally Randriantefy. Katarina Srebotnik, Sandra
Kleinova and Elena Bovina also moved through.
On the men's side, the star of qualifying would have to be Goran
Ivanisevic. Having had as bad a year as he could have with his
shoulder problem, the Croat has been relegated to having to qualify
for a Grand Slam event, and even then, found himself only the 11th
seed in the draw. Goran, being Goran, played an extremely up-and-down
match, eventually losing 7-5 1-6 6-1 to Petr Luxa of the Czech
Republic. Add to that Patrick Rafter's announcement of impending
retirement and bearing in mind Marat Safin's win over Pete Sampras
in the last Grand Slam final, and we have an increasingly clear
changing of the guard on the ATP Tour. Perhaps not too soon either,
with their 'New Balls Please" campaign going strong.
Xavier Malisse, seeded 6th, surely disappointed main squeeze Jennifer Capriati by
losing in straight sets to James Blake. Meanwhile, Eric Taino continues to
make progress, taking out Kristian Pless in a marathon match that
saw a tie-break in the first set and ended at 9-7 in the third.
Sebastien Lareau, Laurence Tieleman and Yoon Yong-Il, Attila Savolt
and Nicolas Coutelot all failed to make it to the second round,
Nicolas falling to Ivo Heuberger in three. Adding a little colour to
the day, Stafano Galvani, with his electric blue hair to match
girlfriend Tathiana Garbin's purple ponytail, managed to get through to the
second round against Jan Hernych.
|
|
The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of this magazine.
http://tennis-ontheline.com/01ao01.htm © 2025
Last updated 26 September 2015
// -->
|