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Nightmare start for Germany

January 19, 2015

Both Sabine Lisicki and Angelique Kerber were knocked out in the first round of the 2015 Australian Open on a disappointing opening day for Germany's tennis stars. Philipp Kohlschreiber did progress though.

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Australian Open 2015 19.01.2015 Angelique Kerber
Image: Reuters/A. Perawongmetha

Sabine Lisicki is out of the Australian Open at the first hurdle. The world number 28 suffered a three-set defeat to Kristina Mladenovic of France - 6:4, 4:6, 2:6. Germany's number 9 Angelique Kerber (above) also exited the competition in the first round, losing to Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu 4:6, 6:0, 1:6.

"It's very disappointing. I couldn't put in practice what we did in training," said Lisicki, who appeared at her press conference two hours after the end of the match. The 25-year-old made 39 unforced errors on the day and exits in the first round of a Grand Slam for the first time in two years.

It took just over two hours, but when Mladenovic did get her first match point she took it straight away. This was in stark contrast to Lisicki, who only took six of 15 break chances and surrendered her serve on eight occasions.

Kerber, a day after her 27th birthday, couldn't recover from a mid-match change in momentum. The last time Kerber failed to progress in the first round of a slam was at Wimbledon 2011. This defeat is perhaps even more surprising than Lisicki's, after Kerber had reached both the quarterfinal and semi-final of the Brisbane and Sydney tournaments respectively.

In the men's tournament, Philipp Kohlschreiber swiftly made his way to the second round. The man from Augsburg beat France's Paul-Henri Mathieu in straight sets in just an hour and 25 minutes. The 31-year-old has reached the last 16 of this tournament on three occasions - most recently in 2012.

There were also defeats for Germany's Dustin Brown (lost in straight sets to Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria) and German qualifier Tatjana Maria (lost in straight sets to China's Peng Shuai). Young hopeful Annika Beck was the fourth German lady to exit in the first round after the 20-year-old from Bonn lost to Spain's Silvia Soler-Espinosa.

Only Julia Görges provided hope for Germany's female tennis stars on the first day. Ranked 73 in the world, Görges beat Switzerland's Belinda Bencic (ranked 32) in just over an hour - 6:2, 6:1.

jh/jr (SID,dpa)