Sunil dives into wild end, emerges licked and liked

Agenor, born in Morocco, but living in Los Angeles, plays Davis Cup for Haiti. He is on a comeback trail after a spell in the tennis wilderness. He was ranked 22 a decade ago, but has never since touched that high.

Nevertheless, he is still reckoned to be a dangerous floater on the tour and on Monday, the oldest player in the draw showed why he was considered so.In contrast,Sunil Kumar began impressively, matching Agenor stroke for stroke and even foxing his opponent at the net with delectable lobs. The lithe Indian raised visions of a fairy tale debut on the tour when he broke Agenor in the third game. But the Haitian came right back to break Sunil for 2-2. Games went to serve thereafter until Agenor broke Sunil Kumar in the 10th for the set.

In the second set, Sunil Kumar yet again kept pace with Agenor, displaying a wonderful variety of shots as also plenty of guts to stay and slug it out. But then, the cagey Agenor came up with a crucial break of serve in the 10th to clinch the issue on the second match point when Sunil Kumar hit long.

Despite the early exit, Sunil Kumar showed he has it in him to progress on the tour with encouragement and exposure. If anything, he justified the wild card entry that did not meet with approval from every quarter. It was thought that somebody like Prahlad Srinath would have benefitted more than Sunil Kumar, for whom it was like taking adive in the deep end of the tennis pool. Earlier, Italy’s Davide Sanguinetti upped his game in the nick of time to put out the higher-ranked Romanian Davis Cupper Adrian Voinea 7-6 (7), 6-4, to also advance to the second round.

Sanguinetti, ranked 120 on the tour, and a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon in 1998, had a sluggish start and came through a close tie-breaker for the first set.

In the second, the 26-year old Italian brought into play an impressive range of strokes to outplay Voinea who seemed to be distracted by a couple of line calls that went against him. Nevertheless, on the run of play, Sanguinetti was decidedly the superior player. Sanguinetti admitted after the match that it being his first outing of the season, the going was tough against Voinea who was ranked as high as 45 in 1996, but currently at 98.

Results (1st round)
Singles: Lorenzo Manta (Swiss) bt Tomas Zib (Czech) 7-5, 6-2; Martin Damm (Czech) bt Christophe Rochus (Bel) 6-3, 6-0; Orlin Stanoytchev (Bul) bt Paul Kilderry(Aus) 6-4, 7-6 (4); Davide Sanguinetti (Ita) bt Adrian Voinea (Rom) 7-6 (7), 6-4; 7-Ronald Agenor (Hai) bt Sunil Kumar (Ind) 6-4, 6-4.