Seeds blown asunder Down Under

MELBOURNE, JAN 22: Third seed Pat Rafter and Wimbledon champion Jana Novotna were knocked out of the Australian Open today, victims of in...

MELBOURNE, JAN 22: Third seed Pat Rafter and Wimbledon champion Jana Novotna were knocked out of the Australian Open today, victims of in-form opponents who cared little for rankings or reputations.

Women wept and men dropped their heads as the romance disappeared for the host nation. Patrick Rafter, two-time US Open champion and one of Australia’s most popular athletes, couldn’t cope with the steady tattoo of groundstrokes from Sweden’s Thomas Enqvist and tumbled out of the tournament 6-4 4-6 6-4 6-4.

“He played too big and too strong for me,” Rafter said. “He never really gave me a chance.”

Enqvist’s win guarantees that Pete Sampras will remain World Number one for at least a few more weeks.

World Number three Novotna fell 6-3 6-0 to Maria Antonia Sanchez Lorenzo in an uncharacteristically docile display that handed the Spaniard by far the biggest win of her career.

“I’m still in a state of shock, it was a nightmare, a total disaster,” Novotna said after the match.

Briton Tim Henman,seeded sixth, was swept aside 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 7-5 by Swiss Marc Rosset, while women’s ninth seed Conchita Martinez — another former Wimbledon champion — was upset 7-5 6-1 by French unknown Emilie Loit.

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American Chanda Rubin, a first-rounder loser last year but a semifinalist in 1996 in her best Grand Slam showing, knocked out another seed, No 15 Natasha Zvereva 7-6 (7-3) 4-6 6-4.

Rafter’s loss prevented an intriguing replay of last year’s US Open final against compatriot Mark Philippoussis who reached the fourth round with a relatively incident-free 3-6 6-3 6-4 6-1 defeat of unseeded Slovakian Jan Kroslak.