Injured Safin out of Masters Series

Injured Safin out of Masters Series
Agence France Presse

Indian Wells, March 14: A back injury helped send Russian second seed Marat Safin to an early exit in his opening match at the Masters Series with a straight sets loss to Swede Thomas Johansson here yesterday. Safin, ranked second in the world last year behind Gustavo Kuerten, and early winner in the tournament’s second day, crashed 7-5, 7-5 to Johansson.

The Russian hurt his back two weeks ago during a win over Johansson in the Middle East.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov, however, kept the Russian flag flying when he defeated Chile’s Marcelo Rios 6-4, 7-5. American teenager Mardy Fish collected his second seeded scalp in as many weeks, upsetting the 15th seed Australian Mark Philippoussis 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 6-4.