Andre Agassi's unexplained decision to pull out of the Hamburg Masters has drawn an angry response from the tournament director. Gunter Sanders was furious that Agassi had decided not to play without bothering to tell him, and did not mince words in his criticism. "If he had said he was exhausted or he was too much in love with Steffi (Graff) or something, I would have accepted it," Sanders said. "But not to say anything makes me angry. He has a responsibility to the new Masters Series and he should be aware of it. But Agassi has so much money he doesn't care."

The revamped tour structure, designed to beef up the profile of the men's circuit in the face of a perceived threat from other television-friendly sports, imposes an automatic zero ranking points for missing a Masters Series event.

Agassi evidently decided he could bear that after losing in the third round of last week's Italian Open, preferring to spend the time preparing for his title defence in Paris at the end of the month.

On court, Tim Henman came through a first-round match in the German Open against a gifted opponent many had thought would beat him, and then provided some sorely needed support for his under-fire coach.

David Felgate has come in for heavy criticism recently after Henman's modest results on clay, which explained the coded message after his 6-4, 7-5 victory over Hicham Arazi.

"I have been doing some good things in practice and it was just a matter of me converting that into what I did on the court," he said, with the emphasis on the "me".

Meanwhile, 10th-seed Jennifer Capriati fell at the very first hurdle in Rome yesterday when she was upset 6-3, 7-5 by unseeded Frenchwoman AnneGaelle Sidot in the Italian Open.

Croatian 16th seed Silvija Talaja also made a surprise exit, going down to Colombia's Fabiola Zuluaga 6-2, 6-3.