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by Priya Prasad David Sanchez became the first seed to fall in the men's singles qualifying draw, losing 6-4 3-6 6-2 to Australian wildcard Peter Luczak on a packed Show Court 2. The hard-serving Australian played a solid game against a rather flat-looking Sanchez, who was well supported by coach Jose Luis in the stands. He was soon joined by sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko, who fell to American Chris Woodruff. Striving to get back into the top 100, the American struggled to keep control a little more in the second set, but got through 6-3 7-5 only to pull out of the tournament a couple of hours later with his aggravated wrist injury. Benefiting from the withdrawal is Federico Luzzi, who had also been lucky earlier in the day to come through 7-6(2) 6-7(8) 6-4 against Juan Antonio Marin. Rookie Vassilis Mazarakis impressed the crowds in his quick 6-4 6-4 win against eighth seed Lars Burgmuller, and the Greek will meet Italy's Stefano Galvani in the second round. While the first-round matches hardly provided much entertainment for the crowds other than the novelty of seeing classic names such as Woodruff, Ferreira and Vacek, a few second-round matches promised a bit more bite: Wayne Ferreira (1) vs.Vincent Spadea, Martin Lee vs. Christophe Rochus (3), and Ramon Delgado vs. Nicolas Massu (7). The women came on court next, and unsurprisingly, Elena Bovina absolutely thrashed Sandra Kleinova after a rather messy start, and set up a showdown with future star Daniela Hantuchova (who herself handed Anca Barna a thrashing), which will be an interesting match for tomorrow. Ai Sugiyama, having just come in to Sydney from the Gold Coast, had to get through both her first round match against Australian Michelle Summerside and her second round match against Katarina Srebotnik, who absolutely fell apart in the third set after coming back strong in the second set. The Japanese will next play Tina Pisnik -- add the Slovenian's current hot streak to Ai's heavy schedule and we will very likely see the top seed fall tomorrow. Having walked through her first round match with hardly a trace of effort, Klara Koukalova suffered from what was a combination of a lack of match toughness and a rookie's inability to hold it together against sixth seed Anastasia Myskina. Anastasia herself helped lose the second set by getting a little impatient and failing to finish off points, but got her act together and held her temper in check to finish it 6-4 4-6 6-3. She will next play against Maria Emilia Salerni who defeated Jelena Kostanic in an error-strewn match. Rounding off the second round are Adriana Gersi, who got a 6-2 6-0 win over an out-of-sorts Marlene Weingartner. This is probably as far as her train will go, though, as she will have to take on Alexandra Stevenson in the final round. Alexandra continues to gain the momentum and has an on-court ease that will take her places early this year. Back to the men's draw, and top seed Wayne Ferreira came close to driving Vincent Spadea off the edge in his 6-4 3-6 6-4 win in the second round. Vincent made too many errors in the first set, and his anger at himself for losing the first set got him revved up for the second. Vocalizing his thoughts, much to the amusement of all those watching, he started hitting the ball a little heavier, and had a much easier time of taking the second set than his opponent had taking the first. The errors soon started creeping back in, though, and Wayne's cool kept him in control to the very end. He made Vince play the shots and generate the pace, which paid off in unforced errors, and took the third set 6-4. He will next play against a very talented but temperamental Vassilis Mazarakis of Greece. During his tough and emotionally-charged 7-6(5) 7-5 win over Italy's Stefano Galvani, the 21-year-old actually told a photographer not to aim his lens at him while he was serving. He was obliged for that point, but not a second longer. Playing well under pressure, he will certainly be fresher than Wayne tomorrow, and might pull off the upset for a spot in the main draw. Martin Lee's big serves served him well against Christophe Rochus, whose game was plagued by errors. The match score does no justice to how badly Christophe played in the first set, and the Belgian spent most of it grimacing at coach Julien in frustration. Despite pulling himself together a little in the second set, his game deserted him today against the Brit, who will be hard pressed to fare as well against Ramon Delgado in the next round. Bouncing back on the circuit last year, the Paraguayan played a long and hard match against seventh seed Nicolas Massu. Despite taking the first set rather handily, Nicolas started struggling to keep his shots under control, spraying tennis balls everywhere and actually had to fight hard to stay in the third set. Unfortunately, after all the effort of taking the third set to a tie-breaker, he totally broke down and couldn't string three shots together in a row, losing it 7-1 and storming off the court. The other Lee, Hyung-Taik Lee of Korea, attracted the attention of most of the people who had come out to Homebush Bay in his 6-3 6-0 win over second seed Kristian Pless. Serving well, hitting the ball cleanly, and staying focused, he played aggressively showed no signs of letting up throughout the match. Lee had an up-and-down year last year, but he has looked strong in his first two matches, and looks good to get through against Jacobo Diaz in the next round. Rounding off the draw are Juan Ignacio Chela, who barely broke a sweat against Vadim Kutsenko, and Federico Luzzi, who benefited from Chris Woodruff's withdrawal from the tournament with a reaggravated wrist injury. Chela should have a walk in the park with that one. |