Myskina stuns Henin as Mauresmo scrapes through
Barry Wood
Fourth seed Justine Henin was upset in her opening match at the New Haven Open on Wednesday, while the third seeded Jelena Dokic failed even to get on court.
Henin slumped 7-5 6-2 against Russian Anastasia Myskina, and recent Canadian Open champion Amelie Mauresmo almost followed her out in another second round battle, before edging past Russian Elena Bovina 6-4 4-6 7-6.
But there were wins for fifth seed Martina Hingis, who overcame Alexandra Stevenson 7-5 6-4, and seventh seed Daniela Hantuchova, who rallied to beat Iva Majoli 4-6 6-4 6-1.
Henin found herself constantly on the defensive against Myskina, who recently reached two consecutive grass court finals.
After an early break, the Belgian was always struggling against her opponent's deep groundstrokes, and she ended by winning just one of the last eight points of the match.
"I'm disappointed for sure," Henin said.
"I came here to play matches before the U.S. Open but that's not the reality now. But she played well and I didn't play my best tennis," she added.
"I was always behind her trying to come back. I didn't play aggressively, I was too far from my baseline because she was hitting so hard, and physically it was hard to play the match like this. I'm not strong enough to play that way."
Myskina resisted a strong challenge from Henin, especially when trying to hold on to a break in the second set.
Leading 3-2, Myskina held off seven break points before taking charge in the remainder for the match.
"I played aggressive today, and I tried to be focused for the whole match," Myskina said.
"I tried to keep her on the baseline because she plays really good at the net. When she had the break points I breathed really deep and treated the important points as normal points, no big deal."
LUCKY MISTAKE
Bovina served for the match against Mauresmo at 5-4 in the final set. Fortunately for Mauresmo, she knew nothing about it at the time.
"Actually, I thought it was 4-3," Mauresmo said.
"When I changed sides and the umpire said '6-5' I was surprised. I didn't know she was serving for the match. Maybe it was better for me not to know that.
"When I got to the tiebreaker I remembered that last week I played three and won them all, so I had confidence going into this one."
Dokic pulled out of the event shortly before she was to play her opening match against Switzerland's Patty Schnyder.
The Yugoslav revealed that she has failed to recover sufficiently from the hamstring injury suffered during her semi-final match with Jennifer Capriati at the Canadian Open last Saturday.
She was injured when down 3-0 in the second set and withdrew after playing one more game.
"I tried to practise and it wasn't feeling good," said Dokic, who was replaced in the tournament by Martina Sucha.
"I think I'll be 100 percent for the Open. It's not too painful but it's enough not to be able to play. Considering how much tennis I've played maybe it's good to take the week off."
In the last match of the day, Switzerland's Schnyder overcame Slovakia's Sucha in three tough sets to emerge with a 2-6 6-3 6-3 victory.
