Tennis: The 22-year-old Israeli lost 6-2, 6-2 to former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt in the first round of the $465,000 Adelaide tournament.
By ALLON SINAIDudi Sela 298.88(photo credit: AP)
Dudi Sela's first match of 2008 ended in disappointment on Tuesday.
The 22-year-old Israeli lost 6-2, 6-2 to former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt in the first round of the $465,000 Adelaide tournament.
Hewitt, now ranked No. 21 in the world, raced to 4-0 leads in both sets and cruised into the second round in a mere 65 minutes.
"It was a perfect return. I got off to a good start. I played pretty aggressively and took it to him the whole time," the top seed and two-time former champion said. "He's a lot better player than the score-line indicates though. If you play into his hands and the way he wants to play he can make life tough for you out there.
"I've seen him play some good matches, especially on hard courts towards the end of last year. I was wary of him going in; I didn't think it was going to be an easy first round match and I felt as if I had to step it up, having not played for a couple of months."
Despite the loss, Sela (64) will remain in Adelaide in the coming days after advancing to the quarterfinals of the doubles tournament with Italian Simone Bolelli.
The Israeli/Italian duo, which defeated Robert Lindstedt and Jarkko Nieminen 6-7 (6), 6-1, 10-4, will next play the winner of Wednesday's first round encounter between Giles Simon and Mischa Zverev and the South American team of Martin Garcia and Marcelo Melo.
Also Wednesday, No. 2 seeds Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich will play their first match of the new season in Adelaide against Argentinians Jose Acasuso and Juan Martin Del Potro.
Shahar Pe'er (17) will play her second round match in Gold Coast, Australia on Wednesday against Julia Schruff (119), who surprised Lourdes Dominguez Lino (71) 6-2, 6-1 on Tuesday.
Pe'er will also team-up with Belarusian Victoria Azarenka in their first round doubles match against Alla Kudryavtseva and Tatiana Perebiynis.
On Tuesday Top-seeded Nicole Vaidisova was down a set and saved three break points at 4-4 in the second before beating Casey Dellacqua 5-7, 7-5, 6-0.
Ranked 74 places below No. 12 Vaidisova, the left-handed Australian fell apart after Vaidisova saved the break points and played poorly while being shut out in the deciding set of the first-round match. "When it got tight I probably did get a little bit nervous," Dellacqua said.
The 22-year-old Dellacqua converted only three of 15 break points against Vaidisova, who served 17 aces in a match that ran just under two hours at Royal Pines.
Vaidisova exploited Dellacqua's lack of speed with some clever drop shots and used her strong serve to get out of trouble.
AP contributed to this report
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