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| 08 Oct 2003 | |
| Few surprises on Day 3 |
Day 3 at the Osaka Super Junior tournament brought few surprises with the majority of the seeds progressing unhindered into the third round. The top two seeds in both the boys' and girls' singles, Baghdatis and Tsonga, Laine and Hlavackova made light work of their opponents to go through in straight sets.
Joining Baghdatis and Tsonga in the third round of the boys' singles are a host of Antipodeans. Aussies Lachlan Ferguson, Joel Kerley and Steven Popovic and Kiwis Kiril Tcherveniachki and William Ward all claimed spots in the last 16. Popovic was the surprise of the bunch, the Australian was one of only three unseeded players to make it through, his victory coming at the expense of No.13 seed Arunprakash Rajagopalan from India 76(5) 62.
Also in the third round are the two finalists from last week's Grade 2 event in Brunei. Tai-Wei Liu from Chinese Taipei, seeded No.3, and Ukraine's Sergei Bubka, No.12 seed, have showed they are in top form, both having dropped only four games in total en route to the third round.
In the girls' draw only one of the seeds who successfully made it through the first round did not continue her progress; No.15 seed Shuai Zhang from China fell in straight sets to Stefanie Rath from Austria 62 62.
Japan still have three girls left to fight another day, they also count as three of the five unseeded players in the third round. Momoe Takaya secured a straight sets victory over compatriot Miyoko Takahashi 63 64, Atsumi Koga saw off the challenge of Korea's Hee-Sun Lyoo-Suh 60 75 and with the most exciting match of the day Megumi Fukui outlasted Ayumi Morita, also from Japan 76(3) 46 76(6).
Check ITFJuniors.com daily for match reports and photos.
Click here for drawsheets.
Photos by Hiromasa Mano
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