Martina and Serena Stay on Their Collision Course
by Prip
Martina Hingis started off the day, and apart from a short
frustrating period in the second set, cruised against Rita Grande
to take the match 6-0 6-3 in 46 minutes. She will be looking
forward to her match against Serena
Williams, who didn't have too much trouble against Daja Bedanova in
her fourth round match. Also moving into the quarterfinals is Amanda
Coetzer, who had a straightforward win against Paola Suarez.
In the night match, Venus Williams started out great against Amelie
Mauresmo, but her serve let her down in the second set, and Amelie
surged to take the second set as well as the first three games in the
third, serving ahead. Sure enough, Venus started to pick up the bits
and pieces of her game, while the errors started creeping back into
Amelie's game. As planned, Venus will go into the fourth round to
meet Amanda Coetzer. More interesting will be her semifinal match,
where she will meet either her arch-nemesis Martina Hingis or sister
Serena Williams.
Anna Kournikova and Barbara Schett were once again involved in a
security mishap. In Sydney, fans surging to get their autographs
after a doubles match had caused a security barrier to collapse. This
time, two kids decided to make the television debut a big one.
Throwing a smoke bomb that released bright orange smoke on the court
at the end of the first set, the bomb was quickly removed and the
juveniles apprehended and given a stern warning. The millions of
Kournikova fans (and certainly the hordes that have been frequenting
Melbourne Park) will thank the pair for their handiwork, though, as
Anna and Babsi turned the match around to their favour at that point,
and went on to win the final two sets over Shinobu Asagoe and Yuka
Yoshida after dropping the first 2-6.
In the men's draw, Carlos Moya moves on, taking him closer to a
semifinal showdown against either Yevgeny Kafelnikov or Arnaud
Clement. Not surprisingly, the Frenchman took out Greg Rusedski while
hardly breaking a sweat. Coming into the match with the right tactics,
Arnaud also had a very good day, and all the elements combined to get
him through easily. Greg, however, showed up for his press conference
chirpy as a bird, totally satisfied with his performance in both the
match and the tournament. A very funny incident happened, however, as
the British press asked him what he thought about the crop of British
juniors coming up, referring to the fact that all three of their boys
had gotten through the first round. Not surprisingly, Greg has no
inkling as to what's happening with the youngsters, and was hard
pressed to come up with an answer. Neither would he have any idea of
the junior programmes or system in Britain, having grown up in
Montreal.
In the night match, Sebastien Grosjean took out fourth seed Magnus
Norman (making this reporter's wallet considerably fatter), leaving
fifth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov the highest remaining seed in the draw.
Sebastien simply outplayed Magnus, in all but the fourth set, in
which Norman suddenly played great tennis. The fourth set went very
closely until Sebastien got the break to go up 5-4, and held 2
match points. He double-faulted away the first, and hit a second
serve even Gabriela Sabatini would be ashamed of on the next point,
giving Magnus an easy service return winner. The next point would
certainly stick in Magnus's mind forever. Sebastien served a first
serve that looked long, but was called in for an ace, at which
Magnus pretty much refused to play on and argued with the umpire.
He had been getting questionable line calls throughout the match,
and this was getting ridiculous. He eventually went up to receive
serve, and was aced again.
Just as Grosjean was offering words of consolation to his opponent at the
net, chair umpire Mike Morrissey scrambled out and informed them that
the automatic net device had indicated a let. Neither player had heard
one, though, so Norman opted to surrender the point and call it a night.
Magnus graciously look Sebastien's hand, but didn't want
anything to do with umpire Morrissey. The Swede will simply have to
accept that he came up against a better player today, and walk away
from the defeat.
The first day of the second week in Melbourne Park, and the girls
and boys would get their chance to showcase their talent. Two
particular juniors turned in extremely disappointing performances.
Giovanni Lapentti,
brother of Nicolas Lapentti, was expected to come up with the goods
against German sixth seed Simon Stadler, but the seventeen-year-old
will celebrate his birthday this Thursday without having to worry
about having a late night.
Another young boy, Ivan Stelko, is only 16, and his age showed in
the inconsistency he displayed on court. Playing a terrible match
against fifth seed Wang Yeu-Tzuoo (who is only 15 years old, the
third youngest competitor in the draw), the Croat sprayed tennis
balls all over the court enroute to his 6-3 6-2 defeat. That leaves
Sasa Tuksar the sole Croat in the draw, with Mario Ancic no longer
playing juniors tournaments despite the fact that he will only turn
17 at the end of March. Ancic has been impressing all those around
him for more than half a decade now, and it will only be a matter
of time before his talent is showcased for the world to see. With
Goran Ivanisevic tottering on the edge of retirement, this young
boy will most likely fill the void left by the big-serving Croat.
On the girls' side, Jaslyn Hewitt found herself once again featured
on a show court, this time Show Court 2. The Aussie was in trouble
against tenth seed Maria Jose Lopez, though, and trailed 1-5 in the
first set. The Aussie actually chased her opponent down and evened
the score up at 5-all before losing the first set 7-5. Spurred on
by the fiercely patriotic crowd, Lleyton's sister took the second and third
sets 6-4 6-2, scoring the first upset in the junior tournament. She
has opened up her part of the draw considerably and has a relatively
easy draw to get through to the quarterfinals where she will most
likely meet top seed Jelena Jankovic.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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