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| 28 Jun 2001 | |
| The Road to Wimbledon |
Switzerland leads the way at Roehampton
Four of the eight semi-final places up for grabs on Day 4 were claimed by Swiss players. Of the four remaining places three were taken by Europeans, leaving Gisela Dulko as the only non-European left in the draw.
Both girls semi finals will involve Swiss girls, what’s more not only are they from the same country but also the same family. Sisters Myriam and Daniela Casanova both came through from unseeded positions, Daniela also came through qualifying, to reach the last four.
Daniela, the younger sibling, aged 16, was first through beating Salome Devidze (GEO) convincingly 64 62. Older sister Myriam, who celebrated her 17th birthday last week, had more of a fight on her hands to secure her place. She eventually came through against Russian Dinara Safina in the longest match of the day 46 63 86.
Roman Valent also from Switzerland kept up the boy’s side of the bargain for Switzerland. Valent had to come through a tough first set in his match against Australian Todd Reid. Many times Reid looked to be more in control of the set, playing some great grass court tennis, volleying well and chip and charging on Valent’s serve. However Valent’s passing shots proved good enough to squeeze through 7-5 in the first set tie break. He then went on to take the second set 64.
With the Swiss on such a role maybe it should not have been such a big surprise when Stefane Bohli swept aside No.1 seed and No.1 ranked Janko Tipsarevic (YUG). Despite being ranked 55 places below Tipsarevic, on the day Bohli simply looked far too powerful the Yugoslav.
Grass obviously suits Bohli’s game, Tisarevic just seemed unable to cope with his huge serve and could not find a way to break. However it wasn’t just his serve that was working well, Bohli played exquisite tennis throughout the match illustrated by one point when Tipsarevic played a seemingly unreachable drop shot, only to see Bohli not only reach it but play an amazing angled cross court backhand to win the point. This was the pattern for the entire match and Bohli claimed the fourth semi-final spot for Switzerland 61 62.
Gisella Dulko from Argentina became the sole representative for the rest of the world in the semi-finals when she beat Shuai Peng (CHN) 63 62 in her quarter-final.
Claudine Schaul from Luxembourg beat Indonesia’s Angelique Widjaja in straight sets 62 75 to book her place in the semi-final.
The other two boys semi-finals spots went to Iordan Kanev (BUL) who edged past Mexican Bruno Echagaray 76(5) 76(3) and Robin Soderling from Sweden who completed the European dominance putting out Yeu-Tzuoo Wang (TPE) 63 63.
With the Swiss players all in separate halves of the draw Day 5 could see a complete Swiss domination of the Boys and Girls finals.
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