Ferreira and Spadea Headline Saturday's Action
by Priya Prasad
David Sanchez became the first seed to fall in the men's singles
qualifying draw, losing 6-4 3-6 6-2 to Australian wildcard Peter
Luczak on a packed Show Court 2. The hard-serving Australian played a
solid game against a rather flat-looking Sanchez, who was well
supported by coach Jose Luis in the stands. He was soon joined by
sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko, who fell to American Chris Woodruff.
Striving to get back into the top 100, the American struggled to
keep control a little more in the second set, but got through 6-3 7-5
only to pull out of the tournament a couple of hours later with his
aggravated wrist injury. Benefiting from the withdrawal is Federico
Luzzi, who had also been lucky earlier in the day to come through
7-6(2) 6-7(8) 6-4 against Juan Antonio Marin.
Rookie Vassilis Mazarakis impressed the crowds in his quick 6-4 6-4
win against eighth seed Lars Burgmuller, and the Greek will meet
Italy's Stefano Galvani in the second round. While the first-round
matches hardly provided much entertainment for the crowds other than
the novelty of seeing classic names such as Woodruff, Ferreira and
Vacek, a few second-round matches promised a bit more bite: Wayne
Ferreira (1) vs.Vincent Spadea, Martin Lee vs. Christophe Rochus (3),
and Ramon Delgado vs. Nicolas Massu (7).
The women came on court next, and unsurprisingly, Elena Bovina
absolutely thrashed Sandra Kleinova after a rather messy start, and
set up a showdown with future star Daniela Hantuchova (who herself
handed Anca Barna a thrashing), which will be an interesting match
for tomorrow. Ai Sugiyama, having just come in to Sydney from the
Gold Coast, had to get through both her first round match against
Australian Michelle Summerside and her second round match against
Katarina Srebotnik, who absolutely fell apart in the third set
after coming back strong in the second set. The Japanese will next
play Tina Pisnik -- add the Slovenian's current hot streak to Ai's
heavy schedule and we will very likely see the top seed fall
tomorrow.
Having walked through her first round match with hardly a trace of
effort, Klara Koukalova suffered from what was a combination of a
lack of match toughness and a rookie's inability to hold it together
against sixth seed Anastasia Myskina. Anastasia herself helped lose
the second set by getting a little impatient and failing to finish
off points, but got her act together and held her temper in check to
finish it 6-4 4-6 6-3. She will next play against Maria Emilia
Salerni who defeated Jelena Kostanic in an error-strewn match.
Rounding off the second round are Adriana Gersi, who got a 6-2 6-0
win over an out-of-sorts Marlene Weingartner. This is probably as
far as her train will go, though, as she will have to take on
Alexandra Stevenson in the final round. Alexandra continues to gain
the momentum and has an on-court ease that will take her places early
this year.
Back to the men's draw, and top seed Wayne Ferreira came close to
driving Vincent Spadea off the edge in his 6-4 3-6 6-4 win in the
second round. Vincent made too many errors in the first set, and his
anger at himself for losing the first set got him revved up for the
second. Vocalizing his thoughts, much to the amusement of all those
watching, he started hitting the ball a little heavier, and had a
much easier time of taking the second set than his opponent had
taking the first. The errors soon started creeping back in, though,
and Wayne's cool kept him in control to the very end. He made Vince
play the shots and generate the pace, which paid off in unforced
errors, and took the third set 6-4. He will next play against a very
talented but temperamental Vassilis Mazarakis of Greece. During his
tough and emotionally-charged 7-6(5) 7-5 win over Italy's Stefano
Galvani, the 21-year-old actually told a photographer not to aim his
lens at him while he was serving. He was obliged for that point, but
not a second longer. Playing well under pressure, he will certainly
be fresher than Wayne tomorrow, and might pull off the upset for a
spot in the main draw.
Martin Lee's big serves served him well against Christophe Rochus,
whose game was plagued by errors. The match score does no justice to
how badly Christophe played in the first set, and the Belgian spent
most of it grimacing at coach Julien in frustration. Despite pulling
himself together a little in the second set, his game deserted him
today against the Brit, who will be hard pressed to fare as well
against Ramon Delgado in the next round. Bouncing back on the circuit
last year, the Paraguayan played a long and hard match against seventh
seed Nicolas Massu. Despite taking the first set rather handily,
Nicolas started struggling to keep his shots under control, spraying
tennis balls everywhere and actually had to fight hard to stay in the
third set. Unfortunately, after all the effort of taking the third
set to a tie-breaker, he totally broke down and couldn't string three
shots together in a row, losing it 7-1 and storming off the court.
The other Lee, Hyung-Taik Lee of Korea, attracted the attention of
most of the people who had come out to Homebush Bay in his 6-3 6-0
win over second seed Kristian Pless. Serving well, hitting the ball
cleanly, and staying focused, he played aggressively showed no signs
of letting up throughout the match. Lee had an up-and-down year last
year, but he has looked strong in his first two matches, and looks
good to get through against Jacobo Diaz in the next round. Rounding
off the draw are Juan Ignacio Chela, who barely broke a sweat against
Vadim Kutsenko, and Federico Luzzi, who benefited from Chris Woodruff's
withdrawal from the tournament with a reaggravated wrist injury.
Chela should have a walk in the park with that one.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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