This German is a bad neighbour

However, there was nothing neighbourly about the way she finished off Capriati, who also suffered the humiliation of becoming the first women’s defending champion to lose in the first round in Melbourne in the Open Era.

“It took a few minutes (to sink in) but then I realised. I worked very hard for the past couple of months and I think I deserved it,” said Weingartner, whose only previous meeting with Capriati, in 2001, ended in a 6-0, 6-2 drubbing.

“I just played my match and I just tried to put her under pressure a lot. If I play my game I think that I can beat a lot of top players. I have the potential, I’m sure about that. I like to play in front of big crowds — it motivates me. I hope I will play a few more matches on (centre court),” said Weingartner, who has counted Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Amanda Coetzer as her biggest scalps to date. Weingartner joked that perhaps German tennis officials, who have long been searching for a new Steffi Graf or Boris Becker, would give her due credit for her victory. (Reuters)