MELBOURNE, JAN 17: Women's world number one Lindsay Davenport and men's number three Alex Corretja will serve up the early action on the first day of the Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park tomorrow.Corretja takes on Japanese qualifier Takao Suzuki in the first centre court match of the A$ 11.75 million ($7.4 million) event. Second seed Corretja, runner-up at the French Open last year, has never progressed past the third round in Melbourne.Corretja will be followed onto centre court by the in-form Davenport, whose best performance in Melbourne to date was a semi-final berth last year.Davenport arrives fresh from a straight-sets win over defending champion Martina Hingis of Switzerland in the Sydney tournament. She takes on lowly-ranked Spaniard Gala Leon Garcia.In a slight break with tradition, defending men's champion Petr Korda of the Czech Republic will not be seen on opening day. Korda is at the centre of a drugs controversy following his positive test for the banned steroidNandrolone at Wimbledon last year.Korda's ranking has slipped to 21 through a combination of injury and poor form and he is unseeded in Melbourne this year. Nirupama bows out: Top Indian woman Nirupama Vaidyanathan lost in the final qualifying round to Sandra Kleinova of the Czech Republic at Melbourne today. The 22-year-old lost 4-6 4-6 in the third round on the final day of qualifiers at Flinders Park.Nirupama beat Eun-Ha Kim of South Korea 7-6 (7-4) 6-0 in the first round and then outplayed Louise Latimer of Britain 6-3 6-1 in the next to move within a match of making it to the main draw.Leander Paes, who made it to the main draw this year, takes on Davide Sanguinetti of Italy in his first round encounter tomorrow.Eleven can dethrone Sampras: ANY of 11 players have the mathematical possibility of taking the world number one tennis ranking off missing Pete Sampras in the Australian Open.Marcelo Rios, top seed here, Corretja, Patrick Rafter, Carlos Moya, Andre Agassi, Tim Henman, GregRusedski, Richard Krajicek, Yevgeny Kafelinikov, Karol Kucera and Goran Ivanisevic can theoretically dethrone Sampras.
