 Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 28 Jun 2005 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |  Photographer: Ron Angle
Date: 23 Jan 2006 |
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| 23 Jan 2006 - Melbourne Park - Eleanor Preston | |
| Roshardt Exits On Opening Day At Melbourne Park |
The first junior grand slam of the season was barely a few hours old before it suffered its first big shock, the 36 63 62 loss of boys’ second seed Robin Roshardt. The 17-year-old Swiss’ high hopes of winning the tournament were felled by both the combative play of his unseeded opponent, Grzegorz Panfil of Poland, and a painful leg injury sustained during the match.
“In the third set after the third game I hurt my hamstring, it felt like it snapped. After that I couldn’t move side to side and I couldn’t push up on my serve,” explained a devastated Roshardt, whose warm-up for the Australian Open included a practice session with World No.1 Roger Federer. “I really felt very bad. He made 60 winners because of that. It happened very suddenly. I called the physio but he couldn’t help me. It’s happened to me three months ago and then it took three weeks to heal, so I don’t know this time how long it will take to get better. I will fly home tonight and speak to the doctors and hopefully be fit to play some Futures in Switzerland.”
Roshardt’s defeat has opened up the bottom half of the boys draw but elsewhere top seed Thiemo De Bakker of the Netherlands continued his purple patch of form, winning his 18th match on the bounce to defeat Patrick Nicholls of Australia 64 62. De Bakker is unbeaten in 2006 and won his first three tournaments of the year, an unblemished record which marks him out as hot favourite to win his first grand slam title.
“I worked very hard on physical condition before I went to Mexico for my first tournament of the year and I think the biggest key is that I’m really fit,” said the 17-year-old from The Hague. “I spent a lot of time in the gym. When you are doing it, sometimes it’s really hard but when you get to play like this it is all worth it. For sure it motivated me to think that I was coming here.”
If De Bakker does win the title on Sunday he will overtake the absent Marin Cilic as World No.1 but the teenager insisted that he was trying to stay focused on his next match against Australian wildcard Edward Bourchier, who beat Shuhei Uzawa of Japan 75 64.
“Because I won the first three tournaments then I will be the man to beat but I won’t think about that. I will play my matches and if somebody beats me, they beat me,” he said. “This is a new tournament and everybody has chances. For sure it’s an ambition to be World No.1 and it’s something I’m working for but I have to win the tournament to be No.1 and I would love to do that anyway. If I was No.2 and won the tournament then I would still be happy.”
In other boys’ results, there were upsets for France’s seventh seed and Junior Davis Cup hero Kevin Botti, who lost to Brydan Klein of Australia, while sixth seeded Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan of India was beaten 76 46 86 by another Australian, Stephen Goh. It wasn’t all good news for home players though – twelfth seed Stephen Donald went out to Christopher Racz of the USA.
In the girls’ competition, top seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark was in imposing form in her opening match, beating Australia’s Bridget Healy 60 64 while Great Britain’s sole representative at the Junior Australian Open, Jade Curtis, eased past Elena Chernakova of Russia 62 62. Alize Cornet of France, who also received a wildcard into the main draw of the women’s event, was too strong for Tereza Mrdeza, beating the Croatian 63 76.
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