The tournament preparation for the 2008 Australian Open is over for five Canadians.
Top-ranked Frank Dancevic of Niagara Falls, Ont., won three matches in qualifying two weeks ago in Adelaide, Australia, and then one in the main draw before losing 6-4, 6-1 to the solid play of third seed Jarkko Nieminen of Finland.
Through a mistake that resulted in him not officially entering the event, Dancevic was not in the main draw though his ranking was high enough. Instead he had to play through the qualies and ended up earning 15 ranking points, five more than he made at the same event last year.
On Saturday, Dancevic exited the first round of qualifying for the Medibank International in Sydney, beaten 6-3, 6-4 by Steve Darcis of Belgium. It was a drizzly, slightly windy day and Darcis was able to best Dancevic with a harder hitting, more consistent backcourt game on the fairly slow new Plexicushion courts.
Ultimately, the snafu on the entry in Adelaide may have helped Dancevic get in a few more matches before the Australian Open, which starts next Monday.
Canada’s No. 1 woman, No. 105-ranked Stephanie Dubois of Laval, Que., had an impressive first-round qualifying win in very windy conditions last Friday in Sydney, defeating the Frenchwoman Stephanie Foretz 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.
In Sunday’s second round, she led Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden 3-2 but only managed two more games in a 6-4, 6-1 loss.
Dubois now heads to Melbourne as will No. 136-ranked Aleksandra Wozniak of Blainville, Que., and No. 168 Marie-Eve Pelletier of Repentigny, Que. Wozniak lost her first round of qualifying in Hobart last Friday and Pelletier, eight players out on the entry list for the Sydney qualifying, did not make it in despite three or four withdrawals.
Veteran Frederic Niemeyer, ranked No. 169, had a good win in the Sydney qualifying on Saturday, defeating Jesse Huta Gulung of the Netherlands 7-5, 6-1. Yesterday in stifling heat and humidity, Niemeyer, 31, lost a heart-breaker, 6-7(2), 7-6(3), 7-5 to Nicolas Devilder of France. On a break point for him at 4-4 in the final set, the umpire over-ruled a call on the baseline in favour of the Frenchman. Niemeyer was upset but continued to battle. He went to the net consistently but ended up losing the match there when Devilder got back two passing shots on his third match point, the second for a winner.
Niemeyer, Wozniak and Pelletier will play the Australian Open qualifying starting on Thursday – Dubois and Dancevic, ranked No. 72, are direct into the 128-player main draw.
Daniel Nestor, and his new partner Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia, will be the second seeds at the Australian Open in doubles. Nestor-Zimonjic are also second-seeded this week in Sydney and if they win their first-round match and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and his new partner Mahesh Bhupathi of India do likewise, the illustrious duo of Nestor and Knowles will be on opposite sides of the net in the next round.
Stat-of-the-week: Five metres. That is the distance that world No. 1 Justine Henin got from some giraffes during a trip to South Africa after she won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in November.
"We had an amazing time," Henin recalled in Sydney on Sunday. "I was there with my best friends and their six-year-old boy. I think the most moving thing was when we were on safari on horseback. Each of us was on a horse. We were able to get within five metres of some giraffes, we were really close. Then we stopped to have an aperitif. We let the horses go and they went back to the lodge. We had an aperitif and watched a magnificent sunset. It was, how can I put it . . . ‘Out of Africa.’ That’s really what it was."
