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 He's back Paes wins his first match on familiar turf
Posted: Wednesday July 07, 1999 09:57 PM
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) -- Days after winning the doubles and mixed doubles titles at Wimbledon, Leander Paes once again showed his singles game isn't too shabby, either. The defending champion breezed into the second round of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships on Wednesday with 6-1, 6-3 victory over Nenad Zimonjic. Paes, 26, used well-placed angle shots and volleys to repeatedly torment his opponent. And Paes, not known as a big server, hit seven aces and didn't face a break point. Paes, whose victory here last year was the only singles title of his career, said the grass courts of Newport are tailored to his game. He played grass-court tennis growing up in India, and the soft grass here produces low bounces that are perfect for the 5-foot-10 Paes and his compact strokes. "Guys like me don't have many troubles" in Newport, Paes said. "We don't have to bend down too much." Though his doubles victories at Wimbledon and this year's French Open have brought him increasing fame and fortune, Paes said he is playing Newport because the place has "charisma and charm." He also wants to improve his current singles ranking of 102. Zimonjic, a touted prospect from Yugoslavia despite being ranked 197, had 10 double faults, many unforced errors and visible frustration. He blamed his performance on a fever that landed him in the hospital last week, as well as Paes' play. "He played good, but it's easy to play good when someone is not making serves," Zimonjic said. "I really didn't play good; it can't get much worse than this." Paes plays top seed Wayne Ferreira on Thursday in the most anticipated match of the day. In other matches Wednesday, Chris Woodruff upset third-seeded David Prinosil 6-2, 6-4 in a second-round match, and fourth-seeded Andrew Ilie rallied to beat Christiano Carrati 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 in a first-round match. Ilie trailed 5-3 in the deciding set before winning the rest of the games. A bit of a showman, Ilie showed no fear by using a between-the-legs shot at an important moment of the last set. Asked about the timing of the shot, Ilie said: "It doesn't really matter. If it's there, you might as well do it." In other second-round results, Kenneth Carlsen of Denmark defeated former Harvard star James Blake, Stefano Pescosolido beat Max Mirnyi and Peter Wessels defeated Jonathan Stark.
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