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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. |