A day of rain cooled down the ongoing China Open here as 11 ATP matches were postponed yesterday.

　　In one of only two matches played yesterday, Taylor Dent of the United States, the seventh seed of the tournament, outclassed Australia's Peter Luczak 6-3, 6-2 to reach the second round.

　　Seen as one of the future US superstars, the 23-year-old grabbed the attention of the tennis world as he recorded the fastest serve of the year at a mind-boggling 144 miles per hour at Wimbledon in 2001.

　　His big serve party yesterday had a slight opening setback with five double faults in the first set, but the American soon got his form back and showed his great serve-and-volley skills, sealing a blank of break points against his opponent.

　　Fewer tennis players choose to play most of the time at the baseline, but Dent, one of the few serve-and-volleyers in the ATP tour, still firmly believes that he could become one of the best players in the world using the traditional tactics of tennis legend Pete Sampras.

　　"My serve is so great today and I've been working on it a lot those days." Dent said. "I just go onto the net when I am serving well."

　　Dent used his superb serve-and-volley game to overcome Luczak, winning 37 of 49 serving points in the one hour five minutes match.

　　"I am one of the few serve-and-volley players in the ATP," Dent said. "It needs good stamina, sometimes it benefits me so much, but sometimes it makes me hurt. Anyway, this is my style and I will play the game in my way."

　　Dent fired 16 aces, hammered 29 winners and converted three of four break-point opportunities.

　　Dent broke Luczak's serve with a winner at the net in the seventh game to go 5-3 in the first set before he held his own serve to win.

　　After breaking Luczak's serve in the first game at the second set, Dent controlled the match to the end.

　　In another court, Israel's Noam Okun seized all of his three break points, routing England's Arvind Parmar 6-3, 6-2 to capture his first victory at the China Open.

　　The remaining matches were delayed and will be played today.

　　Indian qualifier Prakash Amritraj became the lucky recipient of a first round spot as Hicham Arazi of Morocco had to pull out of the first round from rip injury.

　　It might be good news for China's wild card Lu Hao, who should have had a tougher match against Arazi.

　　Rain trouble

　　Besides delaying the tournament for a whole day, the sudden rain also proved to be a headache to the less-experienced Chinese organizers who failed to react quickly to the impact of the rain, with a large number of fans and reporters being forced to wait for further information for at least four hours.

　　Iggy Javanovic, director of ATP Public Relations, asked Chinese fans to take it easy, pointing to the Wimbledon Open, which is famous for the fact that rains stops play on a frequent basis.

　　"The Wimbledon Open is over 100 years old and China Open is no more than one year old. At the Wimbledon Open, the fans will be told what the weather will be in the next one or two hours. They have better experience and they rely on computers to get accurate weather information."

　　He said that the organizing of the tournament, which started on Monday is expected to conclude on September 26, will be improved.

　　"Even though it is the first time that Beijing hosted a major tennis event, I had phone calls from the BBC, CNN and German TV, all asking me about the tournament here," he said.

　　The rain started at about 12:40 pm and forced the rest of the matches to be postponed until today. But the fans, reporters and photographers had to wait for a long time before a press conference was held at 4:20 pm to announce that the matches had to be delayed and the originally-scheduled opening ceremony at 6 pm was also cancelled.

　　"It might be not good in one or two days. But we should look at the event in the long term," the ATP official said.

　　More games in China

　　Javanovic believed the China Open will be a start for the world's populous nation to hold more tennis tournaments in the future.

　　"China is a new market and tennis is a new sport in China. We are going to make the biggest impact here. We will make efforts to work with the government, local peoples and the promoter. A long-term strategy will be needed to suit tennis development in China."

　　He said the ATP will not be fully focused on one event and will pursue further development in China.

　　"A lot of investment have been made and will be made before the 2008 Olympics. The centre court of the China Open will be the venue for the 2008 Olympics. The ATP will benefit a lot from this investment in the coming years," said Javanovic.

　　The US$500,000 tournament has attracted ATP big names like former French Open champions Juan Carlos Ferrero, Carlos Moya and finalist Guillermo Coria; former US Open champion Marat Safin; top 10 stars David Nalbandian and Rainer Schuettler and Asian No 1 Paradorn Srichaphan.

　　"Asia has become very strong in its economy and in sports. Everybody has a lot of interest in the Asian market," Javanovic said.

　　"Tennis is very fresh here. Big tennis names have played a lot in the US and in Europe and they think they should play in Asia and in China," he said.