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| 21 May 2001 | |
| Italian Junior Open |
The first days play at the 42nd Italian Junior Open was disrupted by rain with only 31 of the 64 scheduled matches completed.
The bad weather and extremely slow surface produced a number of first round upsets with five seeds in the Boys Singles draw falling at the first hurdle.
Ytai Abougzir (USA) was the highest placed seed at No.3 to succumb. Despite winning the first set he was unable to hold on against German clay court specialist Phillipp Petzschener 46 75 62.
Oscar Posada (VEN) and Stefan Weispeiner (AUT), seeded 13 and 15 respectively, both fell to local wild cards. Posada was beaten in straight sets 62 62 by Daniele Giorgini and Weispeiner also succumbed in two to Andreas Seppi 61 75.
Seppi’s friend and neighbour Tomas Holzer was another Italian wild card to perform well, defeating Matt Emery from the United States 62 60.
Ryan Henry, semi finalist in Santa Croce last week, was responsible for the downfall of No.13 seed Santiago Gonzalez (MEX) 26 61 75, whilst Stephane Bohli saw off No.9 seed Florian Mayer 61 61.
Gilles Muller and Luciano Vitullo, two of the hot favourites for the title managed to avoid the avalanche of seeds, both securing straightforward victories to progress to the second round.
In the Girls Singles Gisela Dulko, Petra Cetkovska and Angelique Widjaja all survived the first day. Not so fortunate was the No.4 seed Sofia Arvidsson, who suffered defeat at the hands of Croatian Ana Vrljic 64 62 and No.8 seed Su-Wei Hsieh (TPE) beaten by Michelle Gerards (NED) 46 63 64.
Today tournament organisers will be hoping for improvements not only in the weather but also in the fortunes of the top players.
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