Football
Reuters 17y

Tennis-Gonzalez drops out of Roland Garros in first round

PARIS, May 29 - Swashbuckling Chilean Fernando
Gonzalez will not get a chance to repeat his Australian Open
heroics after he slumped to a 6-2 6-2 6-4 defeat by Radek
Stepanek in the French Open first round on Tuesday.

On a day of upsets, the fifth seed followed third seed Andy
Roddick out of the tournament after he failed to offer any form
of challenge to Czech Stepanek.

After wasting three match points at 5-3 in the third set,
Stepanek made no mistake in the next game and closed out the
victory in one hour 52 minutes to the delight of his fiancee
Martina Hingis, who was watching courtside.

Gonzalez had led a charmed life in Melbourne to reach the
final of the season's first grand slam but in Paris, his best
showing remains a quarter-final appearance in 2003.

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