LONDON, 9 June 2004 — Andre Agassi was denied his 800th career victory yesterday and his Wimbledon preparations were thrown into disarray as the multiple grand slam champion lost to Igor Andreev 4-6, 7-6, 7-6 at the Stella Artois Championships.
Agassi, who has been stuck on 799 career wins since March, has now lost three matches in a row — the first time this has happened since 1997.
Fellow former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic also departed the $860,265 grasscourt warm-up tournament, beaten in the opening round by Romanian Victor Hanescu 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.
Mark Philippoussis followed the trend, his defeat the most surprising of all, against a Welshman ranked 849 places below him.
But defending champion Andy Roddick advanced smoothly, beating Slovak Karol Kucera 7-6, 6-2 in straightforward fashion.
Philippoussis, runner-up at Wimbledon last year and a former winner of the Stella Artois Championships, lost 7-6, 7-6 to Ian Flanagan in one of the biggest upsets in the tournament’s history.
Federer Canters Into Halle Second Round
In Berlin, world No. 1 Roger Federer began the defense of his Halle Open title with a solid 6-3, 6-2 victory over former Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson in the first round yesterday. Fifth seed Marat Safin’s Wimbledon preparations, however, came to an abrupt end when he failed to convert a match point in the third set and was beaten 6-2, 6-7, 7-6 by unseeded Swede Jonas Bjorkman.
After an early scare in the first set when he went 2-0 down, Wimbledon champion Federer quickly got into his stride on the slick lawn to quash the challenge of his Swedish opponent.
Federer, who was surprisingly beaten in the third round of the French Open, said he still had to improve his game ahead of Wimbledon, which begins on June 21.
Grass Continues to Be Greener for Sharapova
In London, Russian starlet Maria Sharapova continued to impress on grass surfaces as she progressed to the last 16 of the WTA tournament yesterday. Last year’s semifinalist had little trouble disposing of the American Jamea Jackson 6-2, 6-2 in 67 minutes.
In the next round Sharapova will play either Milagros Sequera of Venezuela or Samantha Stosur of Australia.
Daniela Hantuchova also made an impressive start to the tournament after falling to 54th in the rankings.
The 21-year-old Slovak is unseeded at Birmingham but took only 54 minutes to beat South Korea’s Yoon Jeong Cho 6-3, 6-1 in the first round.
Hantuchova will face France’s Tatiana Golovin, who progressed when 15th seed Elena Likhovtseva retired because of a virus.
Two more seeds were knocked out, following the opening-day exits of Magui Serna, Tina Pisnik and Lina Krasnoroutskaya.
Number 10 seed Maria Vento-Kabchi of Venezuela lost 6-2, 6-2 to Spaniard Virginia Ruano Pascual, and 13th seed Claudine Schaul of Luxembourg was defeated by American Jill Craybas.
