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| 29 Jun 2002 | |
| Top Seed, Wang, ousted on Day One |
By Eleanor PrestonThe Wimbledon Championships this year have already thrown up a few surprises in the men’s and women’s draw and the first day of the junior competition boasted more than a few upsets of its own.
Top of the list was Michel Koning’s 6-4 6-4 win over the boys’ top seed Yeu-Tzuoo Wang. Wang, from Taipei, was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon last year but that grass court form deserted him against Koning. With top seed Svetlana Kuznetsova out of the girls’ event, Wang’s defeat means the top seeds are missing from both the boys’ and girls’ draw. No.2 seed Brian Dabul is now the highest seeded boy while Su-Wei Hsieh is the highest seeded girl. Both Dabul and Hsieh will play on Monday.
Fifth seed Todd Reid narrowly avoided a similar fate against Frank Dancevic. Reid, who reached the final of the Australian Open boys’ tournament at the beginning of the year, survived a second set scare to defeat Dancevic 6-1 5-7 6-0. Reid’s compatriot Ryan Henry is also through to the second round with a 7-6(4), 6-0 win over Brendan Evans. Evans is sporting newly bleached hair this week but the change of look made little difference against Henry who had an army of Australian supporters standing on Court 8 to cheer their fellow Aussie on.
In other boys’ results Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Robert Yim, Lamine Ouahab and Markus Bayer all scored wins.
The biggest shock in the girls’ competition on Saturday was Anna Hawkins 67 6-1 6-0 win over Elke Clijsters. The British wildcard had to dig deep to overcome the big name Belgian and afterwards she was thrilled with her win. "It was really, really hard but I just kept believing in myself," said Hawkins. There were loads of people watching and cheering and that made it a fantastic atmosphere to play in. I had to fight but really enjoyed myself out there." Hawkins is a feisty character on court, yelling at herself to "come on" and pumping her fist, much to the delight of the patriotic crowd.
Hawkins wasn’t the only British success on the opening day. Emily Webley-Smith rattled past Thailand’s Pichaya Laosirichon 6-2 6-2 while Katie O’Brien knocked out Amani Khalifa of Egypt 6-4 6-4. Fellow Briton Francesca Flavell couldn’t manage to join Webley-Smith and O’Brien in round two though. She was beaten 6-1 1-6 6-2 by Tory Zawacki.
Other winners on day one included Tatiana Golovin, Barbora Strycova, Americans Cory Avants and Ally Baker and Slovakia’s Linda Smolenakova.
Photographs by Susan Mullane
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