The host nation saw its last singles player booted out of the Australian Open on Monday, taking the shine off celebrations of the country’s national holiday.
In a battle of the unseeded men, France’s Nicolas Escude beat Australian Todd Woodbridge 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-2, pinning the higher-ranked net expert to the baseline.
The 21-year-old from Chartres, making his debut at the Open, was one of four Frenchmen who made it to the last 16 at Melbourne Park.
He next faces in the quarterfinals either compatriot Guillaume Raoux, who knocked out third seed Michael Chang, or Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer.
Woodbridge, the top seed with his partner Mark Woodforde, still has the doubles title to defend. But he had his eyes on breaking into the top 15 singles rankings this year after reaching the semifinals of Wimbledon last year.
Most other matches were delayed by steady rain Monday, which also marked Australia Day, celebrating the 210th anniversary of European settlement.
Rain, which began Saturday night, has persisted, leaving hard-core fans with ground passes sitting Wimbledon-style under umbrellas on outside show courts.
On Sunday, some fourth-round men’s matches were moved to the Center Court, which has a sliding roof.
But two women’s matches, one pitting ninth seed Sandrine Testud and Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn and the other between eighth seed Conchita Martinez of Spain and Austria’s Barbara Schett, were delayed. Both matches were scheduled for outside courts Monday.
On Sunday, No. 1 Pete Sampras withstood a tough first set to defeat Moroccan left-hander Hicham Arazi 7-6 (11-9), 6-4, 6-4 and advance to the quarterfinals.
“I was surprised the way he served a lot of aces, a lot of service winners,” Sampras said. “I thought I was hitting some big shots, had him on the ropes, and he came up with some huge winners. He made me work very hard.”
Arazi, who at 5 feet 9 inches is 4 inches shorter than his opponent, hit 16 aces to 24 for Sampras.
When some of his best shots zipped past Sampras, Arazi raised both arms. When he missed, he berated himself. When the umpire called a let on an apparent Sampras ace that would have ended the first set, he blew the official a kiss.
Despite playing mainly from the baseline, he suddenly charged in on his serve on some points in the tiebreaker and put away volleys.
“I couldn’t believe he was recovering after the long points we were having,” Sampras said.
Arazi was playing in his eighth Grand Slam event. In most, he has gone out in the first round, but in last year’s French Open he became the first Moroccan to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal.
In four previous matches against top-10 players, he beat Marcelo Rios and Thomas Muster and lost to Thomas Enqvist and Carlos Moya.
“I need more experience against good players,” Arazi said. “I think I need to, in important moments, maybe take some risk . . . but the most important thing is to play them a lot.”
Arazi, 24, moved to France at age 2 and began playing tennis at 6 with his father, a tennis instructor. He still plays Davis Cup for Morocco, and has an 8-3 singles record.
Against Sampras, he hoped to take the champion by surprise.
“I can’t complain about anything,” he said. “I did my best and he’s just the No. 1.”
Arazi spoke in English, one of five languages he speaks, along with Arabic, French, Italian and Spanish. He relaxes by reciting poetry with his coach. And on this day, the crowd was behind him.
“I was feeling at home, like in Morocco,” he said.
On the women’s side, Lindsay Davenport, the No. 2 seed, produced the first double-bagel of her career, a 48-minute 6-0, 6-0 wipeout of No. 15 Ruxandra Dragomir under the closed roof to set up a quarterfinals confrontation against Venus Williams.
