Australia, Spain split opening matches

Australia, Spain split opening matches
Eds: UPDATES with second match.
By DENNIS PASSA
Associated Press Writer
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Australia and Spain split the opening singles matches Friday in the Davis Cup final after an embarrassing national anthem mixup.
Australia's Lleyton Hewitt opened the best-of-five competition with a 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (0), 6-2 victory over Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Spain's Carlos Moya beat Mark Philippoussis 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (4) in the second match.
The event got off to a bad start when a long-outdated Spanish national anthem was played during the opening ceremony.
Spain's Sports Minister Juan Antonio Gomez-Angulo waved furiously and yelled from the stands when the anthem of Spain's first republic, the Himno de Riego, was played. The correct anthem was then played, and will be repeated Saturday and Sunday.
"I was quite surprised," Ferrero said. "I had never heard that (anthem) before. It was a big mistake, but I had to keep my mind focussed on the match ahead."
Hewitt won in his first match in more than two months.
"All my thoughts were to try to get Australia off to a great start," the Australian said. "I'm glad I did. ... I was going for it a lot today, probably more than I normally do. I might have had a lot more errors, but I had a lot more winners, too."
On Saturday, Australia's Todd Woodbridge and Wayne Arthurs will face Feliciano Lopez and Alex Corretja in doubles. In the concluding reverse singles Sunday, Philippoussis will play Ferrero, and Hewitt will face Moya.
Hewitt shut out Ferrero in the fourth-set tiebreaker, broke serve in the first game of the fifth set and dominated the rest of the way before a sellout crowd of about 14,000 at Rod Laver Arena.
"I played an awesome tiebreak," Hewitt said. "When you go into a tiebreak down two sets to one, you want to get off to a good start. I just played faultless tennis and laid it all on the line."
Moya, a clay court specialist, last played on grass at Wimbledon in 2000 when he lost to champion Goran Ivanisevic. He has pulled out of Wimbledon the last two years because of injuries.
"It's a good win for me, I was fighting a lot and was very focussed," Moya said.
When asked about playing on grass, he replied: "Maybe I might start to like it now."
Tennis Australia officials apologized courtside after they were alerted to the anthem error, and sent a letter of apology to the president of the Spanish tennis federation, Augustin Pujol Niubo.
"It is unfortunate the outstanding opening ceremony was marred by this regrettable occurrence and, as a mark of respect, Tennis Australia will be playing the Spanish and Australian anthems before play tomorrow and again on Sunday," Tennis Australia president Geoff Pollard said in the letter.
Pollard said the error occurred because "a CD of world national anthems provided to the performer by Tennis Australia contained what we have subsequently been advised is not the correct national anthem."
Australia has won the Davis Cup 27 times, while Spain beat Australia in 2000 for its lone title. The United States holds the record with 31 championships.