Paris, May 28: Paris in the springtime puts a spring in the step of young lovers. And the French Open is no different given the speed with which former finalist Kim Clijsters and Lleyton Hewitt dispatched their first-round rivals yesterday.
Belgian second seed Clijsters raced through a 6-2 6-0 win in just 45 min over Amy Frazier of the United States - but even that speedy showing gave her precious little time to head for the Suzanne Lenglen court, where Hewitt overcame an attack of third-set jitters to send American Brian Vahaly packing 6-4 6-1 6-7 (6/8) 6-3 despite 100 unforced errors by the Adelaider. He will next face either Britain's Greg Rusedski or Russia's Nikolay Davydenko.
Clijsters explained she and boyfriend Hewitt were in a hurry to get the job done so they can have time together in the world's 'most romantic city', having been fortunate to see their matches scheduled closely together.
"We both like to play on the same day so you don't have to hang out on the courts too much - but I get nervous watching him anyway," Clijsters admitted.
She doesn't like to watch herself either, and doesn't indulge in any video post-mortems of matches such as her Australian Open semi-final loss to Serena Williams, where she collapsed in three sets after having held two match points at 5-2 in the second set.



"I never watch myself. You can always start saying 'I should have done this, I should have done that'," she explained.


Bureau Report