Safin's Wrist is Key for Henman

Marat Safin last night held the key to Tim Henman's hopes in the US Open. The former world No1 from Russia, seeded 26th, has been struggling with a wrist injury all year and said recently that he did not expect to play again until the Australian Open next year.

If he pulls out, as expected, Henman will be made the bottom seed and so avoids playing one of the top players at least until the third round. When the seeds were announced yesterday Henman was not among them. Britain's No2 Greg Rusedski, runner-up in New York in 1997, is also unseeded.

Despite currently standing 31st in this year's ATP Champions Race, thanks to his recent win in Washington, Henman is only ranked No33 on the ATP entry system used by the USTA to determine their seedings.

The US Open begins in New York on Monday and the men's and women's singles draws will be made at the United Nations centre today.

The 28-year-old Henman was seeded No10 at Wimbledon this year, when he reached the quarter-finals before going down to Sébastien Grosjean.

However, the four-time All England Club semi-finalist has never made it as far as the last eight at Flushing Meadow.

The USTA announced that the two-time US Open champion Andre Agassi and the women's world No1 Kim Clijsters of Belgium will be the top singles seeds.

Agassi, the reigning Australian Open champion and current world No1, is followed by the Wimbledon champion Roger Federer of Switzerland, the French Open winner Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain and the in-form Andy Roddick of the United States, who has won consecutive Tennis Masters Series events in Montreal and Cincinnati during the past two weeks.

Clijsters, twice a grand slam runner-up, will be followed by her countrywoman Justine Henin-Hardenne, the reigning French Open champion, and two Americans in the 1998 US Open champion Lindsay Davenport and Venus Williams, a two-time US Open champion in 2000 and 2001 and last year's runner-up.

Clijsters and Henin-Hardenne are the first women ever from the same country other than the United States to be seeded first and second at the US Open and follows the withdrawal of last year's winner Serena Williams due to a knee injury.

Agassi, 33, the oldest player to be ranked No1 in the ATP entry system, goes into the US Open as the top seed for the third time in his career, previously in 1995 and 2000.

He won his eighth career grand slam singles title at the Australian Open in January.

Jelena Dokic registered a welcome 6-2, 6-4 victory over Meghann Shaughnessy at the Pilot Pen event in New Haven, Connecticut yesterday to set up a second-round encounter against Davenport, the top seed.

Only two seeded players took to the court and both advanced, with the No7 seed Conchita Martinez of Spain beating Japan's Saori Obata 6-2, 6-2, and the eighth seed Ai Sugiyama of Japan edging past the unseeded American Lisa Raymond 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.

Dokic was happy with her victory over Shaughnessy after losing their last two matches in what has been a worrying year that has seen her drop out of the world's top 20 after a string of poor results.

"I played well, surprisingly well," said the 20-year-old Yugoslav, seeded 22nd for the US Open. "I haven't had a great year and I lost to her quite easily the last two times we played, so I knew I had to concentrate and play well, and I did."