MELBOURNE Jan 20: Austria's Thomas Muster became the biggest casualty of the men's singles at the Australian Open today when he fell to Swedish journeyman Jan Apell in straight sets, his worst performance `Down Under' in 10 years.Goran Ivanisevic, the 13th seed, soon joined Muster as a first round loser, the big serving Croatian beaten in four sets by Jan Siemerink of The Netherlands.Britain's Tim Henman was also upset, the world number 18 going down in five exhausting sets by French qualifier Jerome Golmard. A Wimbledon quarter-finalist last year and now ranked 18th, Henman fought off two match points at 6-7 in the final set before losing 6-3, 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, 3-6, 11-9 in 4 hours, 19 minutes to the 101st-ranked Frenchman.Eighth seed Muster offered only limited resistance as the world No 10 fell to a 6-4 7-6 (7-5) 7-5 defeat by Apell, a player ranked 233 places below him and whose groundstrokes confounded the clay-court specialist.Muster, the 1995 French Open champion and a former world No 1, rallied only briefly to save two match points in the 10th game after breaking Apell's serve in the previous game.Muster saved another match point in the next game before the Austrian finally fell to a delighted Apell, who punched the air in jubilation after the final point.Ivanisevic, twice a Wimbledon finalist, has never made it past the quarter-finals here and the world No 15 rarely looked like bettering that meager record on the way to a 6-2 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 6-4 defeat by Siemerink.US Open champion Patrick Rafter played two astonishing points for a key break in the next to last game before overcoming stubborn Jeff Tarango in a tense contest lasting more than 3 1/2 hours.Before more than 13,300 partisan spectators, the second-seeded Australian's big serve and acrobatic volleying finally prevailed over the fiery Tarango's baseline sharpshooting, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (4-7), 7-5.Earlier in the final set, the 58th ranked Tarango was given an unsportsmanlike conduct warning after holding up two fingers and shouting at the umpire: ``That's two (line calls) you owe me, and you know it.''Rafter next meets American Todd Martin, a 6-1 6-4 6-1 winner over Javier Sanchez of Spain. Former No 1 Andre Agassi and third seed Michael Chang also had to struggle through their first-round matches.In contrast, women's defending champion Martina Hingis' match was easy enough to allow her to try out new strategies to defend her No 1 ranking against a wave of teen-agers.Agassi took an early 3-1 lead, but then lost five straight games against Italian qualifier Marzio Martelli, ranked 133rd, and let the second set's second game slip away after six break points and 11 deuces.Then he rallied for a 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2, 6-2 victory, finishing the 2-hour, 22-minute match with a trademark play, forcing a short return and putting away a forehand crosscourt.``Everybody is viewing it like a comeback. I'm just going back to work with a passion again,'' said Agassi, who had a 12-12 singles record on the regular tour last year and 4-1 on the challenger circuit, where he dropped down to try to regain his form after falling as low as 141st in the world.Between an extended honeymoon and a wrist injury, Agassi played only one of the four Grand Slam tournaments last year, reaching the fourth round of the US Open.Coming back from a year-end slump and a strained stomach muscle, Chang needed slightly more than three hours to overcome Denmark's Kenneth Carlsen 6-3, 7-6 (7-2), 5-7, 6-3.In other men's matches, US Open finalist Greg Rusedski, seeded fifth, served 27 aces in beating David Witt 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-4. French Open champion and No 12 Gustavo Kuerten won 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 against Spain's Jacobo Diaz.No 9 Marcelo Rios trounced South African Grant Stafford 6-1, 6-0, 6-3 and No 16 Albert Costa beat Germany's Tommy Haas 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, 6-4.Anna Kournikova attracted a capacity crowd to Court one, but the 16-year-old provided her many fans with only a cameo appearance as she blitzed Slovakia Katarina Studenikova 6-2 6-1 in just 43 minutes.Hingis also made a brief but effective appearance, downing German Wiltrud Probst 6-1 6-2 in under an hour on Centre Court.No 3 Amanda Coetzer, a semi-finalist here the last two years, beat Austria's Barbara Paulus 6-2, 6-0, and No 5 Mary Pierce, the 1995 winner and 1997 runner-up, shut out China's Li Fang 6-0, 6-0.In other women's matches, No 7 Aranxta Sanchez Vicario ousted Taiwan's Janet Lee 6-0, 6-4; No 9 Sandra Testud beat Spain's Gala Leon Garcia 6-3, 6-2; No 10 Anke Huber rebounded for a 5-7, 6-0, 6-0 victory over France's Sarah Pitkowski; No 11 Brenda Schultz-McCarthy edged Austrian Marion Maruska 7-6 (8-6), 7-5; No 14 Dominique van Roost beat Canada's Rene Simpson 6-3, 6-2, and No 16 Ai Sugiyama ousted Spain's Maria Antonio Sanchez Lorenzo 4-6, 6-1, 6-3.
