Chang suffers in Sydney

Back to the drawing board for Michael Chang

Michael Chang's Australian Open preparations took a major blow with a first round exit at the Sydney International tournament.

The 1989 French Open champion lost 6-4 6-3 to Australia's Andrew Ilie at the Olympic tennis centre.

Ilie, who finished 2000 ranked 16 places below Chang at 48, outfought the American to ease into a second round clash with either defending champion Lleyton Hewitt or Wayne Arthurs, his Davis Cup team-mates.

The only other casualty on a day of otherwise predictable results was the surprise defeat of Moroccan eighth seed Younes El Aynaoui.

He crashed out 7-5 6-4 to Italian veteran Gianluca Pozzi, the oldest man on the tennis circuit at 35.

With most of the big names, including top seed Magnus Norman, not due to play their opening matches until Tuesday the highest ranked player in action was number six seed Sebastien Grosjean.

Rain delays

The Frenchman won 7-6 6-2 against Richard Fromberg in a centre court match interrupted for almost two hours by rain.

Six of the world's top women are also playing in Sydney.

But with the top four all getting byes and the first round split over two days the highest ranked player in action on Monday was seventh-seeded South African Amanda Coetzer.

The world number 12 was relieved to see the rain after she dropped the first set.

Coetzer returned to the court a different player to beat Denisa Chladkova of the Czech Republic 3-6 6-2 6-2.

Jennifer Capriati, the 1990 French Open finalist, started her campaign with a hard-fought 6-4 3-6 6-1 victory over Russia's Tatiana Panova.