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| 15 Dec 2000 | |
| On To The Semis At The Orange Bowl |
Top seeds Todor Enev of
Bulgaria
and Aniko Kapros of Hungary are still the players to beat in the Boys18s
and
Girls 18s semifinal round of the 54th Orange Bowl Tennis
Championships.
Both won their quarterfinal matches Friday in their quest for the Eddie
Herr
Trophy.
The No. 2 seeds didn’t
fare
as well Friday. Joachim Johansson of Sweden was sent packing in his last
junior
match by unseeded Mexican Bruno Echagaray, 6-3, 6-3; and Renata Voracova,
ranked No. 5 on the current ITF list, was ousted by No. 10 seed Edina
Gallovits.
“It’s not always
the
seeds who win,” said Kapros, who won the 2000 Australian Junior Open
in
singles and doubles. “Anyone can have a bad day. Sometime you get
beaten.
You can’t win all the time.”
Enev, who is No. 2 in the ITF
world
rankings, continued to work his way through the draw in two-set fashion,
this
time discarding No. 7 seed Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 6-3. Tipsarevic was the
highest seed remaining to challenge Enev.
“It was an OK
match,”
said the18-year old Bulgarian, who exudes confidence. “I played good.
I
hit my shots perfect.” Enev will meet unseeded Gilles Muller of
Luxemborg
while the other semifinal will match Brazil’s Bruno Soares, who beat
American
Robby Ginepri in three sets, and Echagaray, who has played in the OB
tournament
annually since he was 14 but never reached a semifinal.
“I was returning pretty
good
when he’d let me,” said the 17-year old after breaking
Johansson’s serve twice in the second set. “I didn’t give
up
on my return. You got to be tough with this guy.” Roomate and training partner
Santiago
Gonzalez fell short of his bid for the semis in a tight loss to Muller
(7-6(8)
and 6-4).
Kapros played conservatively
against 15-year old Jelena Jankovic, the No. 9 seed. “I kept my unforced errors down,” she said
of
her 7-5, 6-4 win.
“(Jankovic) was very active today. She didn’t have as
much
patience and I used that to my advantage. Kapros will play No. 14 seed Vera
Zvonareva of Russia, who beat Dominika Nociarova Friday 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.
The other Girls 18 semifinal
will
feature the first-ever matchup between No. 6 seed Kaia Kanepi of Estonia
and
Gallovits. Kanepi beat 14-year
old
Shuai Peng of China, 6-1, 7-5 to advance to the semifinal.
Enev, looking for his first
Orange
Bowl title in five appearances, summed it up: “Second is no good. Third is no good,” he
said
Friday. “I can do it.”
Orange Bowl Notebook…
Switzerland’s Daniela Casanova, the No. 8 seed in
the
Girls 16s, had a tiring day in the hot Miami sun. First order of play:
meeting
younger sister Myriam in the quarterfinals. Daniela won the first set 7-6
on a
tiebreak, but Myriam took the next set 6-0 and the first game of the third
set.
Sibling pride must have kicked in,; Daniela won the next six games to
advance
to the semifinals. After an hour’s rest, she was back on the court
against No. 14 seed Theresa
Logar.
With a 7-5, 6-2 win, Casanova is in the finals against No. 4 seed Marion
Bartoli of France. The two singles rounds in one day were necessary because
of
Sunday’s rainout….the Boys 16s final tomorrow will pit No. 3
seed
Brian Dabul of Argentina against unseeded Frenchman Marc Auradou…
!supportEmptyParas]
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