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| 07 Oct 2002 | |
| Baghdatis and Kwon post easy first round wins |
Defending champion, Marcos Baghdatis made light work of his opening match at the Osaka Mayor's Cup which started today at the Utsubo Tennis Center. Baghdatis dropped just one game to Tore Deleuran-Skjold of Denmark in a 60 61 whitewashing. Baghdatis commented "I played solid and felt pretty good about my game today. My opponent didn't believe that he could beat me, I think that cost him a lot".
Chris Kwon (USA), seeded 2, made an impressive start to his bid for a first Grade A title with an easy win over Masayoshi Tomita (JPN) 64 63. Making his third visit to Japan, Kwon feels at home "I love Japan, this is a great tournament, the tournament staff are great and I love Japanese food".
No. 6 seeded Brit, Alex Miotto struggled in the first set against Japan's Tsubasa Morizane but found his rhythm and stormed through the next two sets to take the match 57 63 60. 13th seed Andreas Weber (GER) was also pushed by home-grown talent, Satoshi Hatanaka took the second set but fell at the final hurdle 62 46 64.
Three seeds fell on this opening day, no. 12 Adrian Szatmary (HUN) was beaten by Hyun-Joon Suk (KOR) 63 75, Taipei's Yu-Da Shieh lost out to Drazen Sakac (CRO) 62 64, and Iouri Barkov was sent packing by Marco Hosang (GER) 63 64.
With the withdrawal of US Open Champion Maria Kirilenko (RUS), Lucie Safarova (CZE) stepped up to take the no. 1 seeded position. Safarova, whose best result at Grade A level is a quarterfinal appearance in Costa Rica this year, made a strong start by ousting Aussie Daniella Dominikovic 63 62 in her opening match. After the match Safarova found time to talk to tournament director Masahiro Sato "I was a little tight today as it was my first match, but I played pretty well overall. I am hoping to win here but I guess it's going to be pretty tough because there are many great players".
No. 2 seed Andrea Hlavackova (CZE) was pushed all the way by 13 year-old Swiss Timea Bacsinzsky finally clinching victory 46 63 63. Hlavackova commented "It was a very difficult match for a first round. My opponent's balls were so fast and I was nervous that I was making a lot of mistakes".
Lowly ranked Kokoro Takehara from Japan posted the best win of her career so far, overcoming no. 11 seed Angelique Kerber (GER) 64 62. Other seeds to fall were no. 7 Pichaya Laosirichon (THA) who lost easily to Belgium's Jennifer Debodt 61 63, No. 9 Ting-Wen Wang (TPE) took an early lead but was pushed out in three sets by Korean wild card So-Jung Kim 16 63 64 and Taipei's Yung-Jan Chan ousted no. 10 Tina Schmassmann (SUI) 63 26 61.
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