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by Priya Prasad The first two matches of the day featured the remaining two qualifiers in the singles draw. Alexandra Fusai had an expectedly tough match against second seed Tatiana Panova, but couldn't pull it through. Lacking confidence after having had a rough year thus far, Alexandra actually had a break and was up 3-1 in the second set, but found it difficult to finish off points. Tatiana Panova is well known to run after pretty much everything, and sometimes got back absolutely amazing shots that delighted the crowd. On one point, Alexandra hit 3 decent overheads that Tatiana ran across the entire court to return before Alix realised that she'd have to really put the ball away if she were to avoid having to squint into the sun again. Tatiana managed to regain the lead with considerable ease, helped along by numerous errors from Alix, and looked confident as she walked off the court with a 6-4 6-4 win. On the adjacent court, ninth seed Ana Isabel Medina Garrigues polished off Evgenia Koulikovskaya 6-3 6-1. Looking slightly physically stronger than she did nearly a year ago, the Spaniard has expanded her game considerably, and has incorporated a bit more patience into her aggressive baseline game. Back on centre court, Catalina Castano could hardly keep the ball in play against seventh seed Cristina Torrens Valero. She was seemingly bothered by everything from the gusts of wind to line calls to the slow ballkids. (Admittedly, they have all the players pretty much fed up. Players have resorted to directing them around as well, and prefer to pass the ball over to the other side of the court themselves after every game). Cristina didn't have to suffer the afternoon heat much, and quickly finished the match off 6-2 6-2. In the final singles match of the day, Magui Serna continued to struggle after taking the first set of her matches. Playing against the tall Lubomira Bacheva of Bulgaria, the top seed struggled to keep control of points, but eventually came through 6-2 7-5. That sealed the quarterfinal match-ups as follows:
In the meantime, Rossana de Los Rios was relaxing after dinner, watching amusedly as Tatiana and Maria horsed around with her daughter Maria Paola. The independant, amicable and observant youngster continues to amuse and entertain everyone around tournament grounds, and enjoys being swung around and such by the various players. Nuria Llagostera later came along, and teased her by carrying and lowering her into the drink cooler. In other doubles matches, Tathiana Garbin and Janette Husarova came back from a 0-3 deficit in the first set to win 6-4 6-2 against Eleni Daniilidou and Caroline Dhenin. Janette played exceptionally good tennis, to the suprise of many, and looked like her concerns on whether she was burning out were resolved. Second seeds Medina Garrigues and Martinez also creamed their opponents, winning 6-2 6-4 against Emmanuelle Gagliardi and Gala Leon Garcia. That left the semifinal match-ups as Garbin / Husarova (1) vs. Carlsson / Plischke (3) and Medina Garrigues / Martinez (2) vs. Antonella Serra-Zanetti / Schmidle. Odds are that the two top pairs will make it into the final and provide an interesting match for all. |