Tennis: Likhovtseva has revenge in mind

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Elena Likhovtseva will not know until later today who she will play in the second round of the international classic tomorrow.

With no disrespect to qualifier Tzipora Obziler, Likhovtseva hopes top seed and defending ASB Classic champion Anna Pistolesi wins the all-Israeli clash.

Looking ahead after comfortably beating Slovakian Henrieta Nagyova 6-4, 6-2 in the first main draw match yesterday, 27-year-old Likhovtseva said she was looking forward to playing the top seed.

"Early in the season when you are building up, you look forward to playing good players," said Likhovtseva after her first match at the ASB Tennis Centre since her 2000 appearance when, as top seed, she was knocked out in the quarter-finals.

In her first singles since mid-November, Likhovtseva was quickly into her work, breaking Nagyova in the first game when the Slovakian, at 15-40, served the first of three double faults.

In a match of see-sawing fortunes - and nine service breaks - Likhovtseva held the upper hand as on-court temperatures hovered between 28 and 29C.

The Russian, should she meet Pistolesi, will be looking for revenge.

In their last meeting on the green clay at Sarasota, Florida, in April, Pistolesi, after needing to qualify, "won pretty easy" according to Likhovtseva. But, she admits, she prefers the Rebound Ace hardcourts of Auckland.

"I was pretty happy to win that first match," she said after needing just 1h 14min to win through. "I felt more confident after winning the first set. I was a bit nervous before that. Everyone wants to win their first match of the year."

The second stage of yesterday's Russian revolution took just 11 minutes longer, but that was time enough for Vera Zvonareva to upset the rankings and third seed, last season's beaten finalist Tatiana Panova 6-4, 6-1.

Broken in the fourth and 10th games by 18-year-old Zvonareva, Panova, who did not drop a set until the final last time, was never in front in the first tournament clash for the Russian pair.

Five double faults - one in the crucial sixth game of the second set when down 4-1 and struggling to stay alive - were costly.

"For me it was a little strange out there," said Zvonareva. "At home [in Moscow] it is minus 20."

Rating qualifying for the French Open and then going on to reach the fourth round before bowing out in three sets to eventual champion Serena Williams as her year's highlight, Zvonareva is one of a bunch of rising Russian stars.

While in no hurry to put a number on where she would like to be at the end of the new season, Zvonareva said her first trip to Auckland was in preparation for her first serious tilt at the Australian Open.

She now meets German Anca Barna who beat Italian Adriana Serra Zanetti (ranked two places higher at 60) 6-3, 7-6 (10-8).

While the Russians were winning through in just over an hour on centre court, Czech Renata Voracova needed a staggering 3h 20min to see off Holland's Seda Noorlander - in a last round qualifying match. Her reward after such a strength-sapping back court battle?

A first round main draw match today with sixth seed Argentinian Clarisa Fernandez, ranked 97 places higher than her 128.

New Zealand interest in the singles ended yesterday, but not before Leanne Baker had defied the odds in taking world No 69 Martina Muller of Germany to three sets. After blowing a set point in the first set before losing 7-5, Baker, ranked 372, controlled the second to win 6-4 and led 2-1 in the third with a break before the German lifted her game to win five in a row.

Shelley Stephens, ranked 315, had few answers as American Laura Granville, ranked 49, took 64 minutes to progress 6-2, 6-1, dropping service only in the fourth game of the first set.