Paes gives reason for Indians to cheer in Australia

Last year’s finalist Thomas Enqvist crashed out in a five-set first round dogfight with local man Richard Fromberg. The sixth-seeded Enqvist was the biggest casualty on the opening day of the first Grand Slam tournament of the year. He was joined on the early plane home by 14th seeded Karol Kucera of the Slovak Republic, who was dumped from the first major tournament of the 21st century by Thailand’s Paradorn Srichaphan 6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

Enqvist, who lost to Yevgeny Kafelnikov in last year’s final, toiled for three hours 44 minutes before succumbing to Fromberg 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 3-6, 10-8.

World No 1 Andre Agassi and Wimbledon champion Lindsay Davenport swept through their opening matches. Top-seeded Agassi, last year’s French and US Open champion, beat Mariano Puerta (Argentina) 6-2, 6-2, 6-3.

The way he played suggests he will have little opposition until his scheduled match-up with former World No 1 Pete Sampras, returning to Australia after giving the tournament a miss last year, in the semifinals.

Sampras was the last man to beat Agassi — in the ATP Tour World Championship final in Hanover last November.

Davenport blasted aside Sarah Pitkowski (France) 6-3, 6-1 and admitted the new courts worked in her favour.

“It’s going to take a little while to get used to. But fast courts are to my advantage… I think it will help my game a lot here,” she said.

Agassi agreed the courts were definitely quicker, probably to favour local hero Mark Philippoussis. But he added: “We don’t have the same environment, really, any two places in the world, so it’s about adjusting and overcoming.”

Philippoussis, the 16th seed, was out of sorts, but won a five-set thriller against Israeli qualifier Noam Okun. He finished a thankful 6-4, 6-2, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2 winner.

Eighth seed Todd Martin scrambled into the second round after a tough five-setter against Byron Black (Zimbabwe). Martin, last year’s US Open finalist, won 5-7, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-2, 8-6 and now plays Fernando Vicente (Spain) next.

Other seeds to advance on a sun-drenched first day were Britain’s Tim Henman, who frittered four match points but was still satisfied with beating tenacious Frenchman Jerome Golmard, 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (9-7).

Dutchman Richard Krajicek, the 1996 Wimbledon champion, beat Frenchman Fabrice Santoro in straight sets.

Jennifer Capriati said after her 6-1, 7-6 (7-1) victory over Austrian Barbara Schwartz she was pleased to be taken seriously once again.

French fourth seed Mary Pierce beat American qualifier Linda Wild 7-5, 6-3 in the first round.

Injured Moya out: Former World No. 1 Carlos Moya withdrew from the Australian Open due to a recurrence of the back injury which forced him to retire from last year’s US Open.

The 1998 French Open titlist said he didn’t want to risk further damage to a stress fracture of his vertebrae by playing in the best-of-five set Grand Slam format without adequate practice.

“It’s the same problem I had at the US Open — the difference now is that I’m feeling a lot better. The main problem is that I did not practice too much. If this tournament was best-of-three sets, maybe I will try to play. But after hitting half an hour — the longest practice I had lately — and suddenly start playing best of five sets with such a hot day would be really difficult for me. I didn’t want to take such a risk.”

Moya was scheduled to play Marc Rosset (Switzerland) in 1st round match, will be replaced in the draw by Britain’s Jamie Delgardo, the Lucky Loser from qualifying.

INSIGHT :
WHAT THEY SAID AT FLINDER’S PARK
It should be done on the entertainment value and we have a lot of entertainment value at the moment — Lindsay Davenport’s reason for prize money parity with men.

We are not talking about rights and wrongs and we are not talking about laws, we are talking about money and we are talking about all of us getting overpaid — Andre Agassi on the point of equal money for both sexes.

Power is not everything. You can also use speed and I try to do that; use their force and power and just block it away. I have been successful for the last two or three years pretty much with that so I think I can continue with that — Martin Hingis.

To me, he’s like a mini Agassi. He sees the angles a la Andre, sees the ball early, takes it early. He’s extremely quick around the court. Okay, he’s a little bit green in certain areas, he’s not the biggest, there’s still plenty to work on — He’s got attitude. There’s no doubt he’ll be a top-tenner — John McEnroe on rising Australian star Lleyton Hewitt.