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| 23 Jan 2003 | |
| The Three Muskateers, French trio through to the quarterfinals |
The Three Musketeers
unknown
Normal
ITF
2
11
2003-01-23T08:19:00Z
2003-01-23T08:19:00Z
1
486
2773
unknown
23
5
3405
9.2720
By Eleanor Preston
Day four of the Australian Open junior tournament had a
distinctly French flavour to it. Gael
Monfils scored one of the more surprising results of the day with his big win
over second seed and last year’s Orange Bowl champion Brian Baker. Montfils beat Baker 6-4, 6-4 and
afterwards revealed that he has his coach to thank for scouting the American
and passing on a few tips.
“I was confident before because my
coach watched lots of his matches and told me to only play his forehand, so I did
that,” said Monfils. The 16-year-old said he hadn’t set himself any goals and
his results this week have surprised even him.
“I had two tournaments before this one and I played so – so. I just
wanted to try and enjoy playing tennis here. Now I think I can try to get to
the final. “
Monfils joined fellow French players
Mathieu Montcourt and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarter-finals. Montcourt beat
Michael Zverev 6-2, 6-3. Tsonga advanced when his opponent, Sergiy Stakhovsky
was defaulted when he hit a ball behind him which accidentally hit a line
judge. Tsonga was leading 6-4, 2-0 at the time. “It’s a good objective to have many French players around because you all want to win and it’s nice to have your friends around,” said Monfils.
Brendan Evans set up a
mouth-watering encounter with top seed Marcos Baghdatis. Baghadatis eased past
the in-form Josselin Ouanna 6-4, 6-3 while Evans ended Guy Thomas’ run to the
third round. Evans beat the Briton 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 but afterwards admitted that
he had had to battle his own inner demons as well as Thomas.
“I have been working on my thinking
on the court and I just got a little frustrated that I wasn’t doing that well
enough,” he said. “It is a bad part of my personality. This week my serve has
not been very good and the serve is a huge part of my game. When I see that my
serve is not working and I know how much of a weapon it is, I get very
frustrated with that. It’s kind of hard
to play without a serve but I need to focus more on what I need to do instead
of worrying about what I can’t do. Against Marcos I can’t afford to get
frustrated.”
Evans said he had been determined to
get to the last eight before the tournament began. “I thought it was a tough
goal but I also knew it was a real goal. I worked very hard during the off
season, I didn’t take much time off over Christmas and I was really looking
forward to being really prepared for this slam. That’s what I’ve done and I
feel pretty confident about it.”
For his part, Thomas admitted that
he hadn’t brought his ‘A’ game to the third round and said he will be putting
the match down to experience. “In my first few rounds I played really well but
today I was very nervous and I didn’t feel like I was as positive as I was in
my first few rounds,” he said. “I had a great chance and I put too much
pressure on myself. It’s good experience and I think I will keep getting more
chances.”
In the girls’ competition Barbora
Strycova passed a potentially tricky third round obstacle when she beat Virag
Nemeth 6-2, 6-1. Strycova, who is suffering form a painful ankle injury, plays Beier Ko in the quarters after Ko beat Rui Du of China 6-2, 6-4.
South Australia’s Adriana Szili
notched up a home win with 6-0, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Andrea Petkovic. Szili
plays Marta Domachowska in the last eight.
Photographs by Ron Angle
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