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| 13 Mar 2002 | |
| Day Two, Tuesday 12 March 2002 |
It was a good day for South American boys on day two of the Banana Bowl in Sao Paulo.
The Brazilian No. 3, Bruno Siqueira caused a upset by defeating 10th seed Gyorgy Balazs (HUN). Ranked 83 places below Balazs on the World Rankings, Siqueira, from Florianopolis, the home town of Brazilian hero Gustavo Kuerten, took the first set only to see his lead slip away when Balazs levelled the match at one set all. The more experienced Hungarian raced to a 5-2 lead in the final set but Siqueira fought off a match point and secured victory in the tie-break, the final score 64 36 76(6). Siqueira commented "I was feeling my arm but still managed to get the ball into the court".
Chilean Jorge Aguilar caused the only other seed upset on day two by defeating no. 13 seed Antonio Ruiz from Mexico. Aguilar, who lead Chile to victory in the 2001 NEC World Youth Cup, has made an impressive debut on the ITF Junior Circuit this year, capturing the Inka Bowl title in Peru and reaching the final of the Milo Cup, Chile.
Elsewhere in the draw the Brazilian no. 1 from Porto Alegre, Franco Ferreiro, seeded 7 this week, had an easy first round victory over Andris Juska from Latvia, 62 62. The talented Uruguayan players, Marcel Felder and Martin Vilarrubi also moved through to the second round, although the 3rd seeded Felder was pushed to three sets by lucky loser Matias Niemiz (ARG) 46 63 63.
In the girls' competition, 8th seeded Swede Hanna Nooni was losing 6-0 1-0 when injury forced her to retire against Marina Tavares (BRA). This is disappointing for Nooni who has worked hard this year to improve her ranking, winning two tournaments, Victoria, Australia and Bisham Abbey, Great Britain.
In another upset 14 year-old Qualifier, Agnes Szatmari from Romania, put out 12th seed Soledad Esperon thereby securing her first Junior Circuit Ranking points.
Other seeded players in action faired better, Salome Devidze (GEO), Myriam Casanova (SUI), Ally Baker (USA) and Galina Voskoboeva (RUS) all moved through to the second round with easy victories losing just 7 games between them.
The latest results can be found on , www.bananabowl.net
Photographs by Luiz Doro, Susan Mullane and Stephen Wake
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