The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Mauresmo gets off to a successful start

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Mauresmo gets off to a successful start

Amelia Island: Former champion Amelie Mauresmo got off to a successful start at the Bausch and Lomb Championship, defeating Olga Savchuk 6-0, 7-5 in opening round play on Monday.

Mauresmo rallied in the second set surviving two set points before putting Savchuk away in the 12th game.

Other seeded winners included No. 9 Sybille Bammer, No. 13 Virginie Razzano and No. 15 Anabel Medina Garrigues.

No. 1 seed Maria Sharapova and the rest of the top eight seeds received byes into the second round. Anna Chakvetadze, Daniela Hantuchova, Marion Bartoli and Patty Schnyder round out the top five in the field, which also includes three-time tournament champion Lindsay Davenport (No 16).

After Mauresmo breezed through the opening set Monday night, Savchuk failed to deliver on two set points serving with a 5-4 edge in the second, then foot faulted on a break point to even the set at 5-all.

Mauresmo regained control of the match and took the next two games for a satisfying straight-set win in her first match on clay this year.

“I was pretty happy to come back from 5-4 to 5-all because going into a third set is never easy,” said Mauresmo, the 2001 Bausch and Lomb champion whose recent rankings slide has her seeded 11th this year. “It was important to get the momentum back because she was really rolling.”

Sharapova’s return

The tournament marks the return of Maria Sharapova who did not play in the WTA Tour’s previous event — the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. The Russian star skipped the event with a right shoulder injury and is making her inaugural appearance here.

This Tier II event begins the two-week American claycourt swing and offers a first prize of $95,500.

It concludes next week with the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina.

Sharapova began the year by winning 18 straight matches, capturing titles at the Australian Open and Doha before losing to fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in the semifinals at Indian Wells.

However, Sharapova never has made a claycourt final, only reaching three semifinals.

In her only previous appearance on the green clay — the surface here — she fell in the first round at Charleston in 2003.

In her first match here, Sharapova will meet qualifier Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic, who advanced on Monday with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky.

Sharapova’s main competition could come from No. 2 seed Anna Chakvetadze of Russia and No. 3 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia.

Only two former winners are entered — Mauresmo and American Lindsay Davenport, who are seeded 11th and 16th, respectively. Mauresmo, who has fallen out of the top 20, won here in 2001 and reached the final again in 2004.

The results: First round: Sybille Bammer bt Anna Orlik 6-3, 7-6(2); Amélie Mauresmo bt Olga Savchuk 6-0, 7-5; Virginie Razzano bt Yuliana Fedak 6-2, 6-1; Anabel Medina Garrigues bt María Emilia Salerni 6-4, 6-3; Lucie Safarova bt Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-1, 6-3; Olga Govortsova bt Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-3, 6-3; Alizé Cornet bt Michaella Krajicek 6-2, 6-1; Jill Craybas bt Akgul Amanmuradova 7-6(1), 7-6(4); Tatiana Perebiynis bt Peng Shuai 6-4, 7-5; Ekaterina Makarova bt Aravane Rezai 6-2, 2-6, 7-5; Marta Domachowska bt Meghann Shaughnessy 6-2, 6-2; Ayumi Morita bt Nathalie Dechy 6-4, 6-3; Melinda Czink bt Casey Dellacqua 7-5, 6-2; Barbora Zahlavova Strycova bt Timea Bacsinszky 6-2, 6-4. — Agencies

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