Seles relieves memories of her past

The sixth-seeded Seles, however, simply refused to lose. She rallied to win the final six points of the tiebreak and took the match over her fellow American.

Both Seles, who’s been coming back from a foot injury, and Davenport, in her ninth tournament since undergoing knee surgery in January, played well in their first-round match, with a string of long rallies and sizzling winners down the lines.

Davenport, who finished last year as the world No. 1, had reached the finals in four of the events she played since returning to the tour in July. She has not, though, won a title this year.

In afternoon matches, No. 4 Justine Henin of Belgium defeated Russia’s Elena Dementieva, and Belgian No. 5 Kim Clijsters breezed past Chanda Rubin of the United States.

After the afternoon matches drew fewer than 200 spectators, there was a crowd of some 5,000 at the evening session at Staples Center, which seats around 20,000.

Seles wrapped up the match by winning the last three games of the third set. Henin, a 20-year-old who has been steadily improving, kept Dementieva off-balance and beat her 6-3, 6-3 with a blend of well-placed ground strokes and successful forays to the net.

Henin, who has reached six finals this year and won twice, won 11 points in 13 chances at the net, and her accuracy down the lines kept Dementieva scurrying side to side.

The 21-year-old Russian made 40 unforced errors, 13 more than Henin.

Henin broke Dementieva’s service in the sixth game of the opening set to go up 4-2, then held on her next two service games to take the set. Henin took control in the second by breaking Dementieva’s serve in the seventh game. Dementieva lost the final point of each of the last two games of the match on a pair of poorly executed drop shots.