Venus and Serena Williams yesterday suffered defeat for the first time in 18 months on their return to the court on which they won Olympic gold together just over three months ago.

The sisters, winners of the Wimbledon title as well last year, were beaten in a third set tie-break by Martina Hingis and Monica Seles - playing together for the very first time - in the opening round of the International tournament in Sydney.

Chosen as the showpiece night match under the centre court floodlights, Hingis and Seles won 6-4 3-6 7-6 after saving four match points on Venus Williams' serve at 5-6 in the decider. It ended the sisters' run of 22 unbeaten doubles matches.

Hingis had asked Seles to team up with her after splitting from Anna Kournikova last month and, although unseeded just as the Williams were, they are favourites now to begin their partnership with a title.

Kournikova, now with Austrian Barbara Schett and like Seles a winner both in singles and doubles during the day, spoke in between about the break-up with Hingis - and denied there had been a bust-up.

In the men's singles defending champion Lleyton Hewitt pulled himself back from the brink to defeat fellow Australian Wayne Arthurs.

The three-set match saw Hewitt a set down and a break point down at 5-5 in the second, but he came up with a brilliant passing shot at full stretch to deny Arthurs the chance to serve for victory.

It was literally the turning point. The 19-year-old from Adelaide won a tie-break to square things up and then romped through the deciding set 6-2.

Top-seeded Magnus Norman beat Romanian Andrei Pavel, but two seeds did go out - number three Wayne Ferreira to Switzerland's rising star Roger Federer and number four Cedric Pioline to Norman's fellow Swede Jonas Bjorkman.

There was no stopping German Tommy Haas, who continued his fine start to 2001 by beating American Todd Martin 6-3 6-2.