Escude Gives Lee Headaches

Lee Hyung-taek (Samsung Securities) lost to his “natural enemy,” Nicolas Escude, in the first round of the Australian Open.

The Australian Open, which is the first major of the year, began in Melbourne, Australia on January 19. Nicolas Escude (59th seed) shut out Lee (69th seed) in three straight sets with set scores of 0-3 (3-6,6-7,2-6) in 2 hours and 41 minutes and blew away Lee`s will to advance to the second round for two consecutive years in Melbourne.

Lee has recorded three losses in head to head match-ups against Escude, including the defeat in the 2001 U.S. Open and this season’s opener, the Qatar Open. Lee trailed Escude in number of aces 2-15, and Lee`s first serve success rate was 53 percent as he struggled throughout the match. In the second set, with the game score 5-3, Lee had a chance to seize the set at a set point, but allowed Escude to rally and ended up giving up the set after tiebreaker.

Last year’s Australian Open finalist Rainer Schuttler (Germany, 6th seed), who spent last winter`s training session with Lee, let a two-set lead slip away and was upset by Robin Soderling (Sweden, 57th seed).

In the women’s singles, seventh seeded Russian Elena Dementieva was knocked out by Yellena Yankovich (Serbia-Montenegro) by a set score of 0-2 while committing eight double faults and 32 unforced errors.

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com