Taipei, Jan. 17 (CNA) Taiwan's Lu Yen-hsun was eliminated in the first round of the Australian Open men's singles by France's Gilles Simon on Monday, his fifth defeat in the opening round of the year's first Grand Slam event in seven career appearances.
Lu won the opening set in a tiebreaker after taking advantage of Simon's inconsistent serve, but a spate of unforced errors as the match progressed were too much for him to overcome in a 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 defeat in just over three and a half hours.
Lu had lost his only warm-up match leading up the Australian Open last week to Simon 6-0, 6-3 in the first round of the Medibank International Sydney event, which Simon would eventually win, and the rust he showed then resurfaced in Melbourne Monday.
Lu, who is now 0-4 against Simon, had a relatively high 63 unforced errors against the Frenchmen's 35, and he hit four fewer winners than his opponent to seal his fate.
The 27-year-old Taiwanese made his deepest run at the Australian Open in 2009 when he advanced to the third round, but that would have been a nearly impossible task this year, considering his draw.
Even had he defeated the difficult Simon, a former world No. 6 who is now ranked three spots ahead of Lu at 34, he would have had to face second-seeded Roger Federer in the second round.
The third round appearance in Melbourne was Lu's best singles performance in a Grand Slam event before his surprise run to the quarterfinal round at Wimbledon last year.
Lu will now turn his attention to the men's doubles, where he will pair with Rainer Schuettler of Germany against the Swedish-Austrian duo of Simon Aspalin and Alexander Peya in the first round.
On the women's side, Chan Yung-jan will team with Polish partner Agnieszka Radwanska to take on Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia in the first round of the women's doubles.
Chan, 21, lost in the third round of the women's singles qualifying tournament and failed to make her fifth straight appearance in the Australian Open women's singles main draw.
Compatriots Chuang Chia-jung and Hsieh Su-Wei will meet Australian duo Jade Hopper and Monika Wejnert in the women's doubles first round.
Chang Kai-chen, Taiwan's highest ranked women's single player at 117, will be the only Taiwanese player in the women's singles this year and will face Serbian Bojana Jovanovski Tuesday in the women's singles first round. (By Chris Wang) enditem/ls