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by Prip Once again, Mother Nature had her own plans at the Sydney International Tennis Centre, and the first day of main draw play was hampered by gloomy clouds and intermittent rain. Play started right on time, with Corina Morariu taking to stadium court against Tathiana Garbin despite the falling raindrops. Corina had spent the year-end break working hard, and had the confidence with her despite ending the year with a first-round loss to Katarina Srebotnik in Thailand. Tathiana, on the other hand, had had the worst happen just as she was ready to take her ranking to new heights. The Italian had up till the U.S Open the best year of her career, moving up to the thirties in the rankings. As luck would have it, the charismatic Italian ended up in surgery and spent the rest of the year trying to recover. Playing in her first tournament in months, Tathiana came on court looking like she was still in bed. Her strokes lacked any purpose, and her serve was letting her down miserably. Corina played well herself, and was striking sharp winners past her opponent easily. Not surprisingly, the American took the rain-interrupted match 6-2 6-2, just as the skies really started to pour. Tathiana had picked her game up a little in the last game, and Corina's serve had suddenly fallen apart, but the Italian failed to capitalize on the 2 double-faults and threw her racquet around in disgust before hurrying off to the locker room. The rain stopped soon enough, and play resumed as scheduled. The Aussies who had stadium tickets flocked to stadium court -- youngster Evie Dominikovic would take on veteran Nicole Pratt, and the crowd was eager to see how she would do after her encounter with Jelena Dokic the previous year. She looked like she was going to come through after the first set, but fell short and Nicole played hard to cruise to a 3-6 6-4 6-1 victory in the end. On the outside courts, Nadejda Petrova continued her steady journey to the main draw, taking out Bryanne Stewart easily 6-4 6-3 and ending the hopes for any wildcard to get through to the main draw. Tina Pisnik also advanced with a 6-0 3-6 6-1 victory over Maria Alejandra Vento in a needlessly long match, as did Elena Bovina with a 6-1 5-7 6-1 win over Alena Vaskova. The Americans were guaranteed a qualifier, though, as Brie Rippner managed to top compatriot Erika de Lone in a hard-fought match, eventually winning 6-3 6-7(4) 7-5. The men also completed their final qualifying round, with surprises saved for last. Paul Goldstein (who gave Lleyton Hewitt a scare at last year's Australian Open) fell to George Bastl 6-3 4-6 6-2, while wild card Scott Draper took out 2nd-seeded Chris Woodruff by the same score. The bottom half was straightforward, with Christophe Rochus and Jeff Tarango easily advancing to the main draw. In more main draw play, Serena Williams faced more resistance than she anticipated against compatriot Lilia Osterloh. Lilia pushed the fifth seed hard, not giving her many free points, and had a never-say-die attitude in the toughest of situations. Deep into the second set, Lilia found herself down 15-30 at 4-5, and serving to stay in the match. While any player could be forgiven for falling apart, she cracked her serves in and evened the set up. Again, and 5-6 and 0-30 down, she gathered all her resources and played aggressively to get herself out of trouble, bringing it to a tie-breaker. Here, things couldn't have gone better for her, and she jumped to a 4-0 lead. Serena Williams could hardly believe that she was only 3 points away from having to play another whole set, and decided that she'd been on court long enough. She took 5 points in a row to go up, baffling her opponent with incredible shots. Lilia hung tough, but fell short in the end, losing the tie-breaker 8-6. Certainly an admirable effort from the former NCAA champion. Women's Singles Qualifying Final Round
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