Tennis: Williams sisters' run halted by Hingis and Seles

BY MARK GARROD Herald correspondent

SYDNEY - Venus and Serena Williams suffered defeat for the first time in 18 months on their return to the court on which they won Olympic gold together just over three months ago.

The sisters, winners of Wimbledon as well last year, were beaten in a third set tie-break by Martina Hingis and Monica Seles – playing together for the first time – in the opening round of the Sydney International. Chosen as the showpiece night match under the Centre Court floodlights, Hingis and Seles won 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 just after 10pm after saving four match points on Venus Williams's serve at 5-6 in the decider. It ended the sisters' run of 22 unbeaten doubles matches.

"We may have lost the battle but we can definitely win the war." said an undeterred Venus. "They played real nice, they played consistently but we're confident we'll do a lot better."

While Serena has a chance to make amends in the singles, Venus decided to opt out of that and so her next match will be in next week's Australian Open in Melbourne. She is confident her lack of competitive match practice – her last tournament was two months ago – will not count against her in the first Grand Slam of the year.

Hingis had asked Seles to team up with her in the doubles after splitting from Anna Kournikova last month and, although unseeded, as were the Williams after asking for a wild card into the event, they are favourites now to begin their partnership with a title.

In the men's singles the defending champion, Lleyton Hewitt, pulled himself back from the brink to defeat his fellow Australian Wayne Arthurs.

The three-set match saw Hewitt a set down and a break point down at 5-5 in the second, but he came up with a brilliant passing shot at full stretch to deny Arthurs the chance to serve for victory.

That was the turning point. The 19-year-old from Adelaide won a tie-break to square the match and then romped through the deciding set 6-2.

"Under pressure it was nice that it came off," said Hewitt, who now faces another compatriot in Andrew Ilie for a place in the quarter-finals.

The top seed, Magnus Norman, beat the Romanian Andrei Pavel, but two seeds did go out: the No 3, Wayne Ferreira of South Africa, to Switzerland's rising star Roger Federer, and the No 4, Cedric Pioline of France, to Norman's fellow Swede Jonas Bjorkman.

Tommy Haas continued his fine start to 2001 by beating Todd Martin 6-3, 6-2 two days after winning the Australian hard court title in Adelaide.

Haas, who got the better of Hewitt in the semi-finals there, will be one of the players the seeds – including Tim Henman – will be hoping to avoid in the early rounds of the Australian Open. The draw is on Friday.