Richard Vaughan is used to having tricky first rounds, and he expected no easy time against China's Chen Wei while warming up before his match yesterday morning.

And once again, the 2001 edition of the Germanwas no exception to the rule in terms of tough first matches, as the Welshman was made to bow down to Chen.

Oddly enough, both players take part in Germany's Bundesliga. The only difference is that Vaughan plays for Wiesbaden, one of the best clubs, with teammates such as Mark Constable, Darren Hall, Oliver Pongratz, and the newcomer, England's doubles coach Rexy Mainaky.

On the other hand, Chen Wei (pictured) plays for a Berliner Club in the second division. Yet on court, it didn't make much difference, as the 24-year-old Chinese left no chance to his opponent to master the game. In 4 games, it was all over, 8/7, 3/7 - 7/3 - 7/3. Chen Wei was the Hong KongWinner back in 1999, but since then, he's been training back in his private club near Shanghai, before trading for the German Club of Berlin, as an exchange for few months.

Yet Chen Wei's winning streak was over as early as the second round after Jens Roch, ranked 63 in the world, played the perfect game to trouble the young Chinese. Roch used very impressive cross court net play in many key points which even forced Wei to drop his grip and applaud on one occasion. Roch trailed in the second and third games, yet he was able to get back: Chen showed some signs of nervousness and made many careless unforced errors which he'd managed to avoid against Vaughan.

All of this is good news for Kenneth Jonassen, the top seeded Dane, who really enjoyed an easy ride in his first two rounds. Jonassen has also been playing for a German Club, for 4 years already, and never had the chance to play this event. "I think my coaches wanted me to play higher ranked tournaments, but we realised that it was also good for me to play in smaller events, as I need to build up my confidence," said Jonassen. "And so far, I feel really good. I expected a tougher match against Xie, who had given me a hard time in a previous match in a Bundesliga inter-club. He is a tricky player and I was very nervous, but I was able to keep my concentration and be aggressive throughout the match," added the tall, blond Dane (pictured here shaking hands with Xie Yangchun).

Not such an easy round for Oliver Pongratz, Germany's top player, who, in Jonassen's half of the draw, had a really tough first match against Indian Nikhil Kanetkar. And even more so against the much more experienced Andrej Pohar, who pushed him to a fourth game. "It took some time to get my rhythm going, and I was very nervous because we had prepared a lot for this event. Also because I am a player who needs time to adjust as the rallies go on. I still don't like this scoring system very much, it doesn't suit my game, but I'm quite happy with my win," explained Pongratz. His next opponent is Mark Constable, his team partner. "Last time he beat me, but we'll see tomorrow!"

Except for Vaughan's unexpected loss, there were two other upsets in the men's singles draw yesterday. Kasper Fangel won over giant Bjoern Joppien, seeded 9th, in a close-fought battle, in spite of the crowd's support. Jim Ronny Anderson, Norway's leader and 14th seed fell to Indonesian born Yong, who now plays for Germany. Another big match of the day saw George Rimarcdi win against former compatriot Heryanto Arbi, who is visiting some friends in Germany, while the whole Indonesian team had to withdraw from the event due to budget restrictions.

Michael Sogaard also had some easy rounds today, both in the men's doubles and mixed doubles, with his usual partners. Before taking a decision about his career, the Danish player decided to participate in the German event for the fun of the game only. "Of course, we have really easy rounds, but I still love to play badminton. We had to choose between the German and the Dutch and I figured I'd rather have one week rest before the Danish at the end of the month," said Sogaard. He and Jim Laugesen are the titleholders of the German "Last year, we came for a different reason, as I hadn't played together for a while with Jim, but this year, we are here to enjoy ourselves."

Almost all the favourites cruised to the second round in the men's doubles event, except for Canadians Moody/Olynyk and the Swedish pair Bergstrom/Andersson who lost to Jesper Thomsen and Juergen Koch from Denmark and Austria. A fate that Frederik Bergtrom put behind him in the mixed doubles with partner Jenny Karlsson, when they beat German's Zoellner/Bender in three games, 7/0 - 7/0 - 7/0 in one of the last matches of the day. No big upsets in the other draws - the seeded women's doubles had a bye in the first round, and the women's singles event will start later today.

Report and pictures by Raphael Sachetat