Henman Escapes Early Exit

Far from the lush lawns of Wimbledon where he was born to play, Britain's Tim Henman is showing the kind of game it takes to cope with the funny bounces of the Australian Open's rubberized courts.

In the strange weather that characterizes this grand slam tournament -- boiling one moment, shivery cool the next -- conditions are rarely the same from match to match.

It takes a player like the sixth-seeded Henman, with his competent arsenal of shots, to cope with courts that can send the balls bouncing high as if on clay in the heat or skidding low as if on grass in the chill.

Henman doesn't possess the soaring serve-and-volley talents of a Pete Sampras, who won the Australian twice. Nor does Henman have the hard-pounding baseline game of two other former champions on this surface, Andre Agassi and Jim Courier. But the Briton does possess a credible all-court style and the right temperament to make him a threat in this wide-open year.

Henman overcame a choppy start on a cool, blustery morning Wednesday to beat Australian Sandon Stolle 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 and advance to the third round. A semifinalist at Wimbledon last year, where he lost to Sampras, the 24-year-old Henman is coming off his best season and may be ready for a breakthrough grand slam victory.

"It's a tournament I should do well at," Henman said. "The conditions are favorable for me. It's a pretty fair court. I think it does help the aggressive players, the serve-and-volleyers and the guys who are moving forward."

the Australian has not been kind to Henman in the past. He lost in the first round last year in a five-setter against Jerome Golmard. He fell in the third round in 1997 against Michael Chang. And in his Australian debut in 1996, Henman lost in the second round.

But, like stocks, past performance doesn't necessarily guarantee future results. Henman has improved each year, and this tournament already has lost some big names. Sampras never showed p. Top seed Marcelo Rios and No. 11 Goran Ivanisevic pulled out with back injuries, and four other seeded men lost by the end of the first round.

"He's going to have to serve a lot better than he did today," Stolle said. "I was able to take a lot of opportunities. Tim hung in well. I think Tim knows he escaped today."

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Austria's Sylvia Plischke had plenty to smile about after upsetting Anke Huber. (AP)

The match turned for Henman when he broke Stolle for a 3-1 lead in the fourth set.

"I basically donated that game to him, and he got on a bit of a roll and lifted his game," Stolle said.

"Twelve months ago, there's a very, very good chance I would have lost that match," Henman said. "But you've got to learn from your experiences. If anything I was trying too hard to do too much in the third set. I made life difficult for myself in the first three sets. In future matches I've got to try not to dig as big a hold for myself."

Henman next meets Switzerland's unseeded Marc Rosset.

No. 7 Karol Kucera of Slovakia beat Italy's Davide Sanguinetti 7-5, 6-1, 6-4, and No. 9 Richard Krajicek beat Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina 6-3, 6-2, 7-5.

Sweden's Thomas Enqvist, coming off victories in two tune-up tournaments, reached the third round with a three-set victory against Zimbabwe's Byron Black.

On the women's side, former finalist Anke Huber was knocked out in the second round, beaten 6-7, 6-3, 7-5 by Austrian baseliner Sylvia Plischke.

Huber has had a good recent track record in Melbourne and eliminated 13th seed Irina Spirlea in the first round. The German was a semifinalist last year, when she lost to eventual champion Martina Hingis.

Huber, ranked 18th in the world, however, never looked comfortable in a baseline duel on an outside showcourt against 47th-ranked Plischke.

The unseeded Huber had difficulty holding her serve against Plischke, especially in the second set.

Epitomizing the match, Huber lost the closely fought battle on her own serve after pushing two backhands into the net in her worst showing in Melbourne in 10 years of competition.

Huber was beaten in the 1996 final at Melbourne Park by Monica Seles.

In other women's matches, No. 3 Czech Jana Novotna downed Henrieta Nagyova of Slovakia 6-4, 2-6, 6-3; No. 9 Conchita Martinez of Spain beat American Brie Rippner 6-0, 6-4; No. 11 Dominique van Roost of Belgium beat Seda Noorlander of the Netherlands 7-6 (6), 6-0; and Jennifer Capriati lost to Spain's Maria Antonia Sanchez Lorenzo 7-6 (2, 6-2.

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