|
|
| 10 Oct 2002 | |
| Quarter final line up finalised |
There was an upset on day 4 in the boys’ draw when Karan Rastogi from India ousted No.6 seed Alex Miotto (GBR) in the round of 16. The Indian, who celebrated his sixteenth birthday on Tuesday, could not have wished for a better present. After overcoming a very tough match in the previous round Rastogi seemed to find his form and swiftly blew away the No.4 seed 64 62.
GD Jones from New Zealand also scored a great win in the 3rd round when he overcame No.5 seed Tai-Wei Liu (TPE) 63 63. Jones and Rastogi were joined in the quarter finals by top seed Marcos Baghdatis who came through a shaky start to beat Germany’s Andreas Weber 61 64. After the match Baghdatis explained why he had struggled at the start of the match, "I felt pretty tight in the first set because I did not practice before the match. But I started serving better and gradually my game came back."
No.3 seed Gyorgy Balazs (HUN), No.8 seed Tomislav Hadzic (CRO), No.7 seed Wang Cheng Hsieh (TPE) and Chris Kwon, the second seed, also progressed. But perhaps the most popular win of the day goes to No.4 seed Go Soeda who beat Drazen Sakac (CRO) 60 75 to guarantee a Japanese presence in the quarterfinals.
The top two seeds in the girls’ draw moved through to the last eight, although No.2 seed Andrea Hlavackova was made to fight for the victory by Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky. When asked about the scoreline Hlavackova said, "I started out playing bad and my opponent started out playing great. She hardly made any mistakes, but I was able to regroup and I barely won the first set. Although it was good that I won it because I started out playing good in the second set.
Emma Laine (FIN) and Sanja Ancic (CRO) both caused upsets by knocking out higher placed seeds. No.3 seed Kristina Czafikova fell victim to Laine 46 63 61, whilst Ancic accounted for fifth seed Da-jung Hong (KOR) 26 62 61. After the match Ancic explained how she saw the match, "In the first set I was not concentrating and I lost that set easily. In the beginning of the second set, I was determined to play better and give it my best shot. Then I actually started to play better and I pulled out the match".
Also into the quarters are China’s Du Rui, Petra Teller from Hungary, So Jung Kim from Korea and the crowd’s favourite Japan’s Ryouko Fuda.
Photographs by Hiromasa Mano
^ Back to Top
|
