Russia's Marat Safin, background, returns the ball to Czech Republic's Lukas Dlouhy during their second round match of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium, Thursday May 26, 2005 in Paris.
Photo: AP
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Safin Saw Off Czech Dlouhy
On a good day for Russia, Marat Safin, Nikolay Davydenko, Igor Andreev, Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadezhda Petrova, Elena Bovina and Anna Chakvetadze advanced to the third round of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium.
Unpredictable Australian Open winner Marat Safin of Russia survived scares against Czech qualifier Lukas Dlouhy. Safin needed four sets (6-7; 6-3; 7-5; 6-1) to secure the victory. In the third set, Dlouhy had all chances to see off Safin, when he raced to the early break, but lost momentum, made double error (he made 17 double errors in the match overall), lost two games running at his serve and actually made a present of the third set for Safin. Psychologically broken, Dlouhy slumped in the fourth set.
Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev needed four sets as well to advance to the third round. Davydenko defeated Olvier Rochus of Belgium, Igor Andreev knocked out sensational Finnish qualifier Jarkko Nieminen, who had crashed out Andre Agassi in the first round. Mikhail Yuzhny lost to Austrian Jurgen Melzer.
In women’s tennis, Maria Sharapova beat Aravane Rezai of France who was leading 3:1 in the first set.
Also into the third round are Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadezhda Petrova, Elena Bovina and Anna Chakvetadze. With the men taken into account, 11 tennis players of Russia cruised into the third round (Elena Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva and Elena Likhovtseva advanced Wednesday).
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 27, 2005
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