Greg Rusedski picked himself up off the floor today to earn a second-round match with world number one and top seed Gustavo Kuerten at the Australian Open in windy Melbourne. After an injury-hit year he wants to forget, Rusedski found himself a set down to South African qualifier Marcos Ondruska, ranked a lowly 202nd in the world.
Then, after levelling, Britain's former US Open runner-up double-faulted to hand his opponent a 5-3 lead in the third and faced four set points in the next game.
Ondruska, however, was unable to take any of them - double-faulting himself on the second of them - and a relieved Rusedski ran away with the tie-break 7/3 and, growing in confidence all the time, took the fourth set 6-2. Rusedski, fourth in the world in October 1997, is currently 65th but believes a new fitness regime and change of technique has enabled him to turn the corner.
He has turned to Australia's former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash to try to help him climb the rankings again and now against Kuerten he has the chance to measure how far along the comeback trail he is.
Not that it was easy for Kuerten to reach the second round either. Beaten at the opening hurdle last year, the 24-year-old Brazilian lost a second-set tie-break to Argentinian Gaston Gaudio on Centre Court, although Kuerten eventually triumphed 7-5 6-7 6-3 7-5.
There was a real shock in the women's singles when Venus Williams, who won Wimbledon, the US Open and the Olympics last year, lost the second set 6-2 to 18-year-old Spanish qualifier Maria Martinez, playing her first grand slam tournament. But third seed Williams put the youngster, ranked a lowly 152nd, back in her place by running away with the third set 6-0.
Fellow Olympic champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov, last year's runner-up, began just as he did in 2000 with a victory over German Jens Knippschild. The Russian lost an opening-set tie-break 12 months ago but this time cantered home 6-1 6-4 6-2.
Williams' sister Serena had it much easier, overcoming Taipei's Janet Lee 6-1 6-4. Also safely through the first round are Mary Pierce, Amanda Coetzer and Elena Dementieva.
But it is still all going wrong for Michael Chang. He won the French Open in 1989 at the tender age of 17, and everybody predicted a fantastic future for him. This morning he lost to Fabrice Santoro of France and he has now failed to get past the third round of any competition in nearly four years.
Filed by Seán Folan
