SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) _ Jonas Bjorkman lost in three sets to Dmitry Tursunov in the first round of the SAP Open on Wednesday hours before teaming up with John McEnroe in doubles.
McEnroe's return to the ATP Tour when he and Bjorkman were scheduled to take on second-seeded Wayne Arthurs and Stephen Huss on Wednesday night was the highlight of the third day of the tournament.
McEnroe, who now plays on the Champions Tour for players 35 and older, has not played an ATP event since February 1994, when he and Boris Becker lost to Bjorkman and Jeremy Bates in the semifinals of an event at Rotterdam.
The match came the day before McEnroe celebrates his 47th birthday and he was trying to become the first 46-year-old to win an ATP doubles match since Mansour Bahrami teamed with Cedric Pioline to do it in October 2002 in Basel, Switzerland.
McEnroe, who won 10 of his 17 Grand Slam titles in doubles, is playing this event to try to give a boost to the declining state of doubles.
The ATP has adopted a new doubles scoring system for 2006 to generate interest. There are no ad-games in the first two sets and if a match is tied at one set apiece, the teams will play a tiebreaker to decide the match. The first pair to get 10 points, with a two-point advantage, will win.
``Given the fact that for me doubles was an important part of my career and something that I felt helped my singles, I'm hoping that not only will I be able to have some fun doing it obviously and play well _ I mean, I don't want to go out there and not play well _ but more importantly in the longer term it's about trying to sort of be part of some type of solution,'' McEnroe said before the tournament.
``Whether or not I win San Jose is not going to change the sport. Whether doubles is even being played in five years is more of an issue at this point. ... I think doubles in itself is in danger of being terminated. This is a critical next couple of years.''
This Bay Area tournament has been one McEnroe has had success at, winning five times in singles and eight times in doubles during his career.
Tursunov, who helped Russia beat the Netherlands in Davis Cup action over the weekend in Amsterdam, bounced back from losing the first set to beat Bjorkman 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the second round.
``It's kind of hard to judge my game right now because I don't feel 100 per cent,'' he said. ``I am lucky I got through the match.''
Vincent Spadea won the only second-round match of the day, beating Travis Rettenmaier 6-2, 6-0. Spadea took advantage of the injury to second-seeded Andre Agassi, who pulled out on the even of the tournament with a bad back.
Rettenmaier, a former star at UCLA, took Agassi's spot in the tournament and beat Scoville Jenkins in the first round Monday before losing to Spadea.
In other first-round matches Wednesday, Kristof Vliegen beat Rainer Schuettler 6-3, 6-1; Kenneth Carlsen edged Lukas Dlouhy 3-6, 6-2, 6-1; and Arthurs beat Bobby Reynolds 4-6, 7-5, 7-5.
Third-seeded Lleyton Hewitt was set to play his first-round match later Wednesday against American Paul Goldstein. Hewitt was playing his first match since injuring his left ankle in a second-round loss to Juan Ignacio Chela at last month's Australian Open.
