Philippoussis dumps seed Mathieu

LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) Former runner-up Mark Philippoussis knocked out 32nd seed Paul-Henri Mathieu today, taking full advantage of his wildcard into Wimbledon's first round draw.

The injury-prone Australian, runner-up here in 2003 to Roger Federer, beat the Frenchman 5-7 7-6 6-3 7-6 to set up a second round meeting against either Max Mirnyi of Belarus or Spain's Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo.

The 29-year-old Philippoussis, now ranked 176th in the world, was given a reprieve by tournament organisers who initially declined to hand him a wildcard, meaning he would have been forced to qualify.

At this month's warm-up event at Queen's Club, Philippoussis reached the last 16 with impressive victories over Wesley Moodie and Sebastien Grosjean, his first back-to-back wins since last October.

Another Australian wildcard, Alicia Molik, reached the women's second round with a 7-5 6-1 defeat of Yung-Jan Chan.

Former top tenner Molik has slipped to 260 in the WTA rankings after being struck by an inner-ear infection early last year that affected her balance.

She returned to the circuit only in May.

Reuters HS VP0008