BUENOS AIRES, 9 February 2005 — Third seed Guillermo Canas made a winning start to the $380,000 Buenos Aires Open on a good opening day for Argentina yesterday.
Canas, who enjoyed the best season of his career by claiming three ATP titles last year, swept aside Alex Corretja 6-3, 6-1 to clinch his first victory over the Spaniard in three attempts. Fellow Argentines Mariano Zabaleta and Jose Acasuso also recorded straightforward wins.
Eighth seed Zabaleta defeated Spain’s Alex Calatrava 6-3, 6-2 while the unseeded Acasuso overcame Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu by the same score. Top seed Carlos Moya of Spain and second seed Gaston Gaudio of Argentina are due to enter the fray.
French Open champion Gaudio won last week’s Vina del Mar tournament in Chile, his first title since Roland Garros last June.
Ginepri Makes Short Work
of Young in San Jose
In San Jose, American Robby Ginepri ruined 15-year-old Donald Young’s ATP Tour debut, cruising to a 6-2, 6-2 victory in the first round of the San Jose Open on Monday.
Young, winner of the Australian Open junior singles title last month, was overpowered by the more physically imposing Ginepri.
“It was fun and exciting,” said Young, who was a wildcard entrant into the event. “I had a lot of nerves walking out, but once I started to play, it wasn’t bad. “I played close to the way I wanted to play, but it was my first time,” added the left-hander. Ginepri will play the winner of the match between sixth seed Mardy Fish and Sweden’s Thomas Enqvist.
Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen beat Irakli Labadze of Georgia 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 to set up a meeting with second seed Andre Agassi.
Hyung-Taik Lee of Korea overcame former San Jose finalist Jan-Michael Gambill 6-3, 7-6. Lee will meet either top seed and defending champion Andy Roddick or qualifier Paul Goldstein next.
Li, Tanasugarn Post Contrasting
Wins in Hyderabad Open
In Hyderabad, top-seeded Chinese Na Li scored an easy 6-3, 6-3 victory over Marie-Gayanay Mikaelian of Switzerland in the first round of the WTA Hyderabad Open yesterday.
Sixth-seeded Thai Tamarine Tanasugarn, winner of the inaugural tournament here two years ago, had to work harder for her 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 win over Uzbek qualifier Akgul Amanmuradova at the $140,000 tournament.
Amanmuradova forced the match to the third set after winning the second, but failed to match her opponent in the decider.
Second-seeded Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany posted a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 victory over Mandy Minella of Luxembourg to move into the second round.
Eighth-seeded Maria Kirilenko of Russia, last year’s runner-up, also moved into the second round with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus. Italian Mara Santangelo played a solid and consistent game to beat an off-color Jelena Dokic of Serbia 7-6 (7-2), 6-3.
The first set went to a tie-breaker which the Italian girl clinched at 7-2. In the second set, Santangelo kept pressure and forced several errors from her higher-ranked opponent.
In other first-round action, Melinda Czink of Hungary beat Shikha Uberoi 6-7 (7-5), 6-3, 6-2. Uberoi began strongly, winning the first set in a tie-breaker and was up a break at the start of the second. However, she was unable to keep up the momentum and Czink broke back in the fourth game with well-placed forehand shots before winning the set. There were five breaks of serve in the decider before the Hungarian girl took control and closed out the match.
Hometown favorite Sania Mirza, the first Indian to reach the Australian Open third round last month, posted an easy 6-2, 7-5 victory over Romania’s Delia Sescioreanu to enter the second round.
