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by Priya Prasad Giant-killer Tina Pisnik had looked forward to being first on court against seventh seed Daja Bedanova for quarterfinal Thursday, in stark contrast to her midnight match 2 days before. Back to the usual white and blue colour scheme, the Slovenian looked ready for another scrap, while Daja came onto court looking as relaxed as ever. There would be few surprises: the two have known each other since the age of 10, and had been fierce junior rivals just years before. Daniela took off to an early lead, playing steady tennis and watching the ball coming off her opponent's racquet carefully. The slices off the left wing and topspin off the right wing wasn't doing much to fool the Czech, and Tina looked a step slow in getting to the ball. The Slovenian found herself struggling to keep up, receiving at 1-5 down. She managed to save 2 match points before losing the first set, and had the trainer standing by for the changeover. Anyone thinking that she was suffering a letdown after her two big wins early in the tournament were mistaken, and the trainer left her with a quick massage and a heavy wrap on her left thigh for her quad. An essential part of her game taken away from her, Tina could do little to stop the damage, and had a grimace on her face between every point. Unable to get into position well enough, and certainly feeling demotivated by the misfortune, the unforced errors started to take over, and the trainer appeared on the next changeover, Bedanova leading 3-0, to deem the injury serious enough for a default. A smart move from the Slovenian, who not only should certainly be wary of injuries so early in the year, but had qualifying in Sydney to think about. Next on court were last year's finalist Silvia Farina Elia and Nadia Petrova, who had a pair of faithful supporters heartily following her around tournament grounds in white shirts, blue shorts and red knee socks. The pair had been at every match of hers, as well as sat patiently through all her on-court practice sessions. Silvia came on court with her right ankle wrapped heavily, but it didn't seem to bother her too much. The Russian had a cautious start, not hitting the ball half as hard as she's known to, and Silvia got the break to open the match. The Italian was ready to scramble as much as she had to, and kept the ball coming back even if all she could do was take a stab at it. Her gambles paid off more often than not, though, and she got the 2-0 lead she was looking for. The star of the match soon showed up, though, and Nadia's booming serves gave her 4 points in a row for her first game. Feeling a bit happier with herself, she started focusing her attack on Silvia's backhand, taking advantage of the lesser strength in the one-handed shot. Silvia continued to play aggressively, peppering the baseline with her shots and preferring to risk sending the ball long than to come up with a short ball. It worked for a while, but the sheer power of the shots she was facing were forcing a fair number of errors off her racquet, and she suddenly found herself down 3-5, up against one of the fastest serves on the tour to stay in the set. Always sure of herself in any situation, the Milanese refused to step back and took the ball early on the return of serve, getting her the break back. The variety of shots being thrown at her frustrated the Russian, who was struggling to reach for the low skidding slices as well as reaching up for the high bouncy topspins. Her movement was a little flat, making things even worse, and Silvia took advantage of the possible injury, throwing in looping high deep shots. The tactic worked, and she jumped out of a tight situation to a 6-5 lead. A familiar sight when she's on court, Nadia admonished herself, slapping her thigh and muttering in Russian. She started moving into position better, adjusting and putting more effort into her shots to compensate for the less-than ideal heights the balls were coming at her. Hitting the balls cleanly and more confidently, the Russian managed to draw a couple of unforced errors from her opponent, giving her 2 break points, the second of which was converted when a would-be forehand winner down the line from Silvia clipped the net and fell back onto her side. The very nature of each point being crucial in the tie-break gave the edge to Petrova, who had the momentum firmly behind her. Four unforced errors and a double-fault gave Petrova a whopping 5-0 lead before Silvia finally got a grip on herself. Playing very deliberate tennis and facing up to the huge serve very confidently, the Italian bounced back to 4-5, but it was too little too late, and her backhand let her down again to give away the first set. As soon as the tie-break was over, Nadia rushed off the court to where the trainer was waiting, ready to administer treatment for an injury that had become a little less of a hindrance in the last games of the set. The treatment for a pec strain seemed to help Nadia a little, but Silvia had spent the extra time gathering her thoughts and resolving not to let her backhand be pressured. Alternating slices and flat single-handers on the left wing, Silvia took the first, broke for the second, and then the third games of the second set, not letting an opening double-fault bother her too much. Pressing too hard again, she couldn't keep up with the Russian and squandered her lead to even the set up at 4-all. Both players fought hard, Petrova because she couldn't afford to stay on court for a third set and Farina to actually stay in the match. Big hitting interspersed with a bit of finesse and lots of running from both players kept the set a toss-up, but Silvia eventually pushed the envelope a little too far and lost 7-5, making her opponent work hard up to the very last point. After the closely contested first half of the singles play, Justine Henin and Venus Williams appeared to run on and off court just long enough to keep the tickets sales up. Justine made qualifier Anca Barna look like she was standing still on court, the lanky German having absolutely no answers to the barrage of tennis balls bombarding her, and if it were not for the new and still shaky serve, she would have had the honour of the first double-bagel of the year. As it was, she got through with a mere 6-2 6-2 thrashing, but will once again enter the top 100 with her performance here. Venus Williams had to struggle a bit towards the end against Ai Sugiyama, who had the sold-out crowd firmly behind her, but the American managed to overcome an acute drop in her first serve percentage to move ahead with a 6-2 6-4 win. Had the Japanese managed to get her own serve under control, the match might very well have gone to three sets, but alas, she not only struggled to get her first serves in, but had a multitude of doubles-faults at the most unfortunate times. And that set up the semifinal match-ups for the 2002 Thalgo Australian Women's Hardcourts, a lineup most Tier III tournaments could only dream of. At the top of the draw, Venus Williams will take on Nadia Petrova (if the hurting Russian decides not to withdraw from the tournament) and in the other half, Justine Henin will look to put her shake off her nervousness against the young Czech Daja Bedanova. Singles Quarterfinals:
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