Santoro overcomes Blake in Sydney

SYDNEY, Australia -- Experienced Frenchman Fabrice Santoro sent twice-champion and third seed James Blake crashing out of the Sydney International tournament.

The 35-year-old, now in his 20th year on the ATP Tour, triumphed 7-6 6-2 after 80 minutes on the center court.

Santoro, ranked 37, now meets either Australian Joseph Sirianni or Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis in the second round after achieving his first win in four meetings against Blake.

French players did well on the opening day of one of the major lead-in tournaments to next week's Australian Open in Melbourne.

Sebastien Grosjean won 6-4 4-6 6-0 win against Australian Peter Luczak and Gilles Simon overcame American Mardy Fish in straight sets.

"It's a great win for me, because it's the beginning of the year and you don't exactly know where you are at the start of the year," Santoro said.

"Playing against James today was a good challenge for me because he's one of the best players in the world and I've never beaten him in the past.

"I was there for the challenge and I won for the first time, so it's a great day for me.

"It's very exciting for me to play James on center court in Sydney or maybe to play Roger Federer next week in Melbourne (but) hopefully not in the first round."

It was an early setback in the season for Blake, who was chasing his third consecutive Sydney title after beating Spaniard Carlos Moya in last year's final and Russian Igor Andreev in 2006.

"Fabrice is a great player. He's been around the tour for a while and knows how to win matches and give the top guys headaches and he did that today," Blake said.

"I think I got a little bit ahead of myself. Maybe that was from not competing for a month and not having the patient game plan to be calm and continue hitting ball after ball to win the points."

Fourth seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic eliminated Italian Filippo Volandri, 6-1, 6-3 and eighth-seeded Fernando Verdasco beat compatriot Feliciano Lopez in three sets.

Wildcards have been awarded to four players from the United States and France into the main draw of next week's Australian Open.

The wildcards are awarded under exchange agreements with Tennis Australia and the French Tennis Federation and the United States Tennis Association.

The American recipients are Jesse Levine, 20, and Madison Brengle, 17, on a recommendation from the USTA.

Levine is ranked a career-high 170 in the world and Brengle, a former Wimbledon and Australian Open junior finalist, has a senior ranking of 229.

The French-nominated wildcards have gone to Matthieu Montcourt and Mathilde Johansson.

The 121st ranked Montcourt, 22, is a former junior semifinalist at the Australian Open and is making his first appearance in Australian Open main draw.

Johansson, 22, will be playing in her first Australian Open, having reached a career-high ranking of 106 last July. She is currently ranked 135. E-mail to a friend