Federer, Serena find form as Santoro survives marathon
PARIS, May 25: Roger Federer and Serena Williams erased miserable Roland Garros memories on Tuesday by easing into the French Open second round. By contrast, Martina Navratilova made an inglorious return to Grand Slam singles life.
The 47-year-old lost 6-1, 6-3 to Argentine Gisela Dulko 20 years after winning her second and last French title. Federer revealed a granite will beneath his gentle exterior with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 battering of Belgian Kristof Vliegen while Serena trounced Iveta Benesova 6-2, 6-2.
Men's top seed Federer spent just 75 minutes dismantling Vliegen's meagre defences and overcame a psychological stumbling block along the way. The Wimbledon and Australian Open champion had lost in the first round in 2002 and 2003.
Federer could have beaten Vliegen five times over in the time it took Fabrice Santoro to book his second round spot. Santoro beat fellow Frenchman Arnaud Clement in the longest singles match in modern tennis history. The 6-4, 6-3, 6-7, 3-6, 16-14 battle took six hours 33 minutes.
The longest match since tennis turned professional in 1968 had been a Davis Cup tie between American John McEnroe and Sweden's Mats Wilander in 1982 which lasted six hours 22 minutes. Serena's victory was especially sweet.
The American second seed had fled the same arena in tears last year when a jeering French crowd and an inspired Justine Henin-Hardenne had proved too much for her to handle.
But on a glorious Parisian afternoon, the former world number one, radiant in a pink outfit and with a red flower in her hair, swept past the Czech with imperious ease.
Her elder sister Venus, like Serena a former world number one, advanced with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn. The 23-year-old, beaten by Serena in the 2002 final, showed little sign of the ankle injury that had hampered her preparations for the tournament on Court Suzanne Lenglen but looked short of her best form.
Former world number one Marat Safin also advanced after his Argentine opponent Agustin Calleri pulled out injured. The former world number one, seeded 20th, was leading 5-7, 6-1, 4-1 when Calleri called it quits.
Daniela Hantuchova's tumble down the rankings gathered pace when she lost in the first round. The slight Slovak won just four games against Japan's Shinobu Asagoe in a 66-minute 6-1, 6-3 defeat.
Tuesday's results (prefix number denotes seeding):
