NEWS
OTHER SPORTS
DIARY
PEOPLE
MATCH REPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Paes into second round of Australian Open

Indian tennis star Leander Paes entered the second round of the Australian Open 2000, defeating the Australian wild card entrant Dejan Petrovic 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(7-5), 6-4 in the first round match.

Paes, who had to play the qualifiers to enter the main draw is placed in the bottom half in the upper quartile of the draw, with top seed Andre Agassi, 8th seed Todd Martin and 9th seed Richard Krajicek among others.

Paes continued his recent good form in today's match, and broke Petrovic's serve in the very first game. He again got the break in the 5th game and finished the set 6-2 in 25 minutes.

In the second set, Petrovic got the only serve break in game 4. It was 9 unforced errors by Paes, as compared to 6 by Petrovic, which made the difference in this set. Also, Paes could not convert the two break chances he had, and Petrovic took the set in 35 minutes to make it a set a piece.

In the third set, neither player could break serve, forcing the tie-break. Petrovic had two opportunities to break serve, but failed to convert and in the end, fewer unforced errors and more winners saw Paes take the set 7-6(7-5) in 54 minutes.

In the fourth set, Paes got the early service break in the 5th game, but could not hold on to it as he was broken in the very next game by Petrovic. Paes however got the decisive break in game 9, and from then on, had no trouble shutting out the match.

Inspite of hitting fewer aces (6 as compared to 9 by Petrovic), Paes won the match with more total points won (119 as compared to 107) and better break point conversion (4 of 7 = 57% as compared to 2 of 7 = 29% by Petrovic)

Paes next plays Andreas Vinciguerra of Sweden in Round 2 on Wednesday. Vinciguerra defeated Hernan Gumy of Argentina 7-6, 6-1, 6-1 in the first round.

In the other matches from the Paes's half of the draw, 10th seed Richard Krajicek of Netherlands defeated Fabrice Santoro of France 6-1, 6-2, 7-5. Nicolas Escude of France outplayed Jim Courier of USA 6-7(4-7), 6-3, 7-5, 6-1. 8th seed Todd Martin of USA downed Byron Black of Zimbabwe 5-7, 6-7(4-7), 6-4, 6-2, 8-6. Qualifier Fredrik Jonsson of Sweden defeated Jacobo Diaz of Spain 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 5-7, 3-6. Hicham Arazi of Moracco defeeated Julian Alonso of Spain 6-3, 7-6(8-6), 6-2. Fernando Vicente of Spain defeated his countrymate Alberto Berasategui 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.