Guga falls to Wayne bid

”At times I got tight but I lifted my game at the key points,” said Seles, who faces a tough third round opponent in either American Chanda Rubin or Austrian Barbara Schett.

Earlier, on Tuesday Australian qualifier Wayne Arthurs stunned second seed Gustavo Kuerten and Spain’s Galo Blanco ousted two-time champion Patrick Rafter in a pair of first-round shockers. Arthurs, a 102nd-ranked left-hander, served 26 aces and fired 69 winners past French Open winner Kuerten to eliminate the Brazilian star 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/1) in two hours and 32 minutes.

“I couldn’t find a way to beat him,” Kuerten said. “If he plays anybody in the draw like this he could win. Nobody is going to beat him easily. He’s a very tough opponent in the first round. The serve, I could not break it.”

Blanco, ranked 114th, smacked 57 winners past his 20th-ranked Aussie rival to win 7-6 (7/3), 2-6, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (7/5) in three hours and two minutes, taking five of the final six points in the deciding tie-breaker.

Blanco rose to 9-17 this year with his first five-set triumph. Rafter, who lost his serve only once in the match, had won 12 of his past 13 five-setters and was 11-8 in 2000 tie-breakers, but made 68 unforced errors.

Arthurs zipped his final ace at 134 mph (215.6 km/hr) on match point as Kuerten watched helplessly. The 29-year-old from Adelaide was best known for winning 111 service games in a row over 19 sets last year at Wimbledon, starting with three qualifying matches and ending in the third set of a fourth-round loss to Andre Agassi. “Now I’ll go home and people will see what I’ve achieved,” Arthurs said. “You walk in somewhere where someone says hello, actually knows who you are after 10 years of grinding.”

Arthurs was a first-round loser in three prior Grand Slam starts this year and had been a second-round loser in his two prior US Open starts. Rafter, the 1997 and 1998 US Open champion, lost here in round one in 1993, 1996 and last year when he retired with shoulder pain in the fifth set against France’s Cedric Pioline, ending an 11-match win streak in five-setters.

Blanco, 23, lost his only prior meeting to Rafter, 27, by 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 in the 1997 French Open quarter-finals. “He beat me in my tournament and I beat him here in his,” Blanco said. “I haven’t played a lot of matches and I wanted to play well.”

Rafter, now aiming at the Sydney Olympics and December’s Davis Cup final in Spain, said he was not bothered by a nagging shoulder injury but lacked match toughness due to slowed training. Arthurs, only 10-15 in ATP matches this year, won 63 of 70 first-serve points and denied Kuerten on 8-of-9 break-point chances, seven in the last two sets, using his overpowering serve to keep “Guga” a spectator much of the time. “I knew what I had to do. I have watched Gustavo a lot,” Arthurs said. Kuerten, who squandered his best-ever Slam seeding, knew quickly he was done. “From the begining of the tie-breaker he played well,” Kuerten said. “At 4-0 it was almost over.

I didn’t feel I had a chance to turn it around.”

Arthurs, whose father Derek was an Irish Davis Cup player in the 1960s and mother Angie played in Britain, won his first ATP singles match in Hong Kong in 1996 but injured his left elbow later in 1996 and missed nine months.

Kuerten, who turns 24 on the day of the US Open men’s final, was only he the second number two seed ousted in round one ever at the Open. Serena Williams opened defence of her US Open title by ousting Slovenia’s Tina Pisnik 6-3, 6-2 in 59 minutes but said she did not feel at top form. “I was really going for it, too much maybe,” Williams said. “I was feeling a little, not the usual Serena. It showed because it should have been a little quicker. ”

Men singles (1st round): Wayne Arthurs (Aus) bt 2-Gustavo Kuerten (Bra) 4-6 6-3 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-1); 7-Thomas Enqvist (Swe) bt Mariano Puerta (Arg) 3-6 6-3 6-2 6-2; 8-Alex Corretja (Spa) bt Paradorn Srichaphan (Tha) 7-6 (7/2) 6-0 6-0; 12-Juan Carlos Ferraro (Spa) bt Fernando Meligeni (Bra) 6-3 6-4 3-6 7-5; 14-Nicolas Kiefer (Ger) bt Andrea Gaudenzi (Ita) 7-5 6-4 0-6 6-4

Women’s singles: Jelena Dokic (Aus) bt Anna Smashnova (Isr) 6-1 6-0; Tatiana Panova (Rus) bt Selima Sfar (Tun) 6-3 6-1; Els Callens (Bel) bt Erika de Lone (US) 6-1 6-1; Elena Likhovtseva (Rus) bt Miriam Schnitzer (Ger) 7-6 (7/4) 6-4; Patty Schnyder (Swi) bt Jill Craybas (US) 5-7 6-1 6-3; Francesca Schiavone (Ita) bt Silvija Talaja (Cro) 6-3 6-3; Nadejda Petrova (Rus) bt Daja Bedanova (Cze) 6-1 6-2; Lubomira Bacheva (Bul) bt Rossana de los Rios (Par) 6-2 6-4; Tamarine Tanasugarn (Tha) bt Angeles Montolio (Spa) 6-1 6-1; Ruxandra Dragomir (Rom) bt Kristen Schlukebir (US) 6-4 6-1; Gloria Pizzichini (Ita) bt Amanda Hopmans (Ned) 7-6 (9/7) 6-0; Shinobu Asagoe (Jpn) bt Rachel McQuillan (Aus) 6-2 3-6 6-3; Lisa Raymond (US) bt Magdalena Grzybowska (Pol) 6-1 6-0; Magdalena Maleeva (Bul) bt Yi Jing-Qian (Chn) 6-3 6-3; Sylvia Plischke (Aut) bt Paola Suarez (Arg) 6-3 6-3; Lilia Osterloh (US) bt Cristina Torrens Valero (Spa) 6-0 3-6 6-3; Alicia Molik (Aus) bt Denisa Chladkova (Cze) 6-1 6-2; Giulia Casoni (Ita) btKyra Nagy (Hun) 3-6 7-6 (7/4) 6-3; Sandra Kleinova (Cze) bt Lina Krasnoroutskaya (Rus) 7-5 7-6 (7/4); Elena Dementieva (Rus) bt Tara Snyder (US) 7-5 6-1; Virginia Ruano Pascual (Spa) bt Katarina Srebotnik (Slo) 4-6 6-4 6-3; Kim Clijsters (Bel) bt Marta Marrero (Spa) 6-0 6-0; Maria Sanchez Lorenzo (Spa) bt Petra Mandula (Hun) 6-3 7-5; Justine Henin (Bel) bt Florencia Labat (Arg) 6-2 6-4