The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Bartoli, Garrigues bite the dust

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Wednesday, Apr 04, 2007
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Bartoli, Garrigues bite the dust

AMELIA ISLAND: Tenth-seeded Marion Bartoli of France and No. 14 Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain were the first upset victims at the Bausch & Lomb Championships on Monday, eliminated by Greece's Eleni Daniilidou and Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia.

Garrigues was beaten 7-6(4), 6-2 by Cibulkova as the clay-court season got underway with the $600,000 event, while Bartoli was eliminated 6-0, 6-4 by Daniilidou.

Sybille Bammer of Austria, the No. 13 seed, posted a 6-3, 6-1 win over Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand.

Other victorious seeds were No. 16 Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine, No. 11 Katarina Srebotnik and No. 15 Zheng Jie of China. The top eight seeds were given byes into the second round.

Venus raring to go

Meanwhile, Venus Williams said she is physically fit and ready to regain the form that helped her win five Grand Slam singles titles.

The unseeded Williams, who starts off against Aravane Rezai of France, won the event in 2002 when she was ranked No. 1, beating Justine Henin in a three-set tiebreaker.

"I feel really good," Williams said. "I had a great tournament in Memphis and a great tournament in Miami (last week) although I would have liked to do better.

"Every tournament is important to me because I don't play as much as the next player so it's important for me to play well each time I play."

After finishing no worse than 11th in the WTA Tour season-ending rankings from 1998 through 2005, Williams finished No. 48 a year ago. A wrist injury has limited her to just one tournament this year — the Regions Morgan Championship in Memphis, in February.

Important results: First round: Katarina Srebotnik bt Jill Craybas 7-6(6), 6-1; Dominika Cibulkova bt Anabel Medina Garrigues 7-6(4), 6-2; Zheng Jie bt Alicia Molik 6-4, 6-2; Alona Bondarenko bt Gisela Dulko 6-2, 6-3; Meilen Tu bt Flavia Pennetta 7-5, 6-1; Michaella Krajicek bt Sun Tian-tian 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-4; Vera Dushevina bt Nicole Pratt 6-1, 7-5; Eleni Daniilidou bt Marion Bartoli 6-0, 6-4; Sybille Bammer bt Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-3, 6-1; Mara Santangelo bt Lourdes Dominguez Lino 5-7, 6-3, 6-4; Karolina Sprem bt Meghann Shaughnessy 6-4, 7-6(5); Martina M|ller bt Ashley Harkleroad 7-5, 6-1. — Agencies

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