Tennis: Training partners to meet in second round

Arnaud Clement. Photo / Getty Images

Young French tennis prospect Adrian Mannarino has spent a good deal of the last few months learning from his experienced countryman Arnaud Clement in training.

Today he will need to put the friendship behind him as he tries to put the former Australian Open finalist out of the Heineken Open.

Mannarino caused the biggest upset of the first round when he beat fifth seed Juan Monaco of Argentina 6-4 6-3 in a surprisingly one-sided contest.

His reward was a second round match against last year's beaten finalist Clement, who overcame Belgium's Xavier Malisse 4-6 6-2 7-5 in an engrossing 2-1/2 hour contest.

"I practice with him. We have the same coach (Boris Vallejo), who's not here this week, so we are helping each other as much as we can," Mannarino said of Clement after his win over Monaco.

"He was really helping me during the match today."

Neither Mannarino, 22, nor Clement, 33, knew they would be playing in the main draw in Auckland as late as Friday last week.

Clement's second consecutive wild card was only confirmed on Friday when world number four Robin Soderling, for whom a wildcard was being held in case he was knocked out in Brisbane the week before, instead won the tournament.

Mannarino had to come through qualifying, something he also did in Brisbane last week.

"It was important thing before the Australian Open. I wanted to play a lot of matches so it was a good thing that I had to play quallies," he said. "I took a lot of confidence and now I'm playing really well."

The left-handed Mannarino looked a real talent when overcoming Monaco, his serve and forehand being particularly effective, and Clement thinks his practice partner has a good future.

"It's always tough to say but he has a big potential and I think he can do great things in the future," Clement said.

"It's going to be interesting for sure because he's improved a lot now and he's a very, very good player."

Monaco was the only one of the four seeded players to be eliminated in the first round.

Eighth seeded German Philipp Kohlschreiber won on Monday night and he was joined in the second round yesterday by sixth seed David Nalbandian and seventh seed Thomaz Bellucci.

Nalbandian, the former world number three, overcame early rust and windy conditions to account for Fabio Fognini of Italy in straight sets, 7-6 6-4.

Bellucci looked to be heading the same way but in the end had to fight hard to overcome American qualifier Michael Russell in three sets, 6-4 6-7 7-5.

Today sees the top four seeds enter the competition after receiving byes in the first round.

First up on court is second seed Nicolas Almagro. He will play Romania's Victor Hanescu, who needed 2 hours 40 minutes to beat Kevin Anderson of South Africa 7-6 6-7 6-4.

Also playing tomorrow afternoon is top seed David Ferrer, who takes on improving German Tobias Kamke, and fourth seed Albert Montanes, who plays Santiago Giraldo of Colombia.

The highlight of the evening session is the reappearance of last year's champion John Isner. The American will play Dutchman Robin Haase, who came from a set down to beat Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay in a match that did not finish until 12.50am this morning.

- NZPA