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At
a pre-Open tournament last week in Sydney,
the Argentine-Armenian beat the American-Armenian..
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Five tennis players of Armenian heritage entered
the Australian Open, the ATP's first Grand Slam
of the new season, in Melbourne.
Two remain in singles competition: Andre Agassi
(USA, seeded 4) defeated Tomas Enqvist (Sweden)
6-0, 6-3, 6-3 to advance to Round of 16. David
Nalbandian (Argentina, 8) will get his chance
to advance tomorrow when he meets Wayne Ferreira.
All three in the men's division men advanced
to the second round.
Agassi (United States, seeded 4) defeated Todd
Larkham (Australia) 6-1, 6-3, 6-4; Nalbandian
defeated Ricardo Mello (Brazil) 6-2, 6-1, 6-4;
and Sargis Sargsyan (Armenia, unseeded) defeated
Jonas Bjorkman (Sweden, 25) 6-2, 6-3, 6-1.
Agassi (6-0, 6-2, 6-4 over Tomas Berdych of Czech
Republic) and Nalbandian (6-1, 6-0, 6-3 over Florian
Mayer of Germany) advanced to the third round.
Sargsyan, however, was knocked out by Todd Reid
(Australia) 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 7(8)-6(6), 4-6. Sargsyan
earned $28,000 and 7 race points. (Sargsyan teamed
with Karsten Braasch of Germany for a Men's Doubles
second-round victory Friday).
In the women's division, Marie-Gayane Mikaelian
(unseeded) of Switzerland suffered 0-6, 1-4 /retired/
defeat in the first round against Tatiana Golovin
of France (unseeded).
Magdalena Maleeva (Bulgaria, whose mother is
Armenian) lost a second round match to Petra Mandula
of Hungary, 7(8)-6(6), 2-6, 3-6. Maleeva is still
alive in third round of Women's Doubles, with
her partner Conchita Martinez of Spain.
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