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| 06 Oct 2003 | |
| Tsonga takes first blood in Japan |
The penultimate Grade A event of the year kicked off today in Osaka, Japan. The Osaka Super Junior 2003 event takes on added significance this year with the participation of two of the protagonists in the race for the ITF Boys World Champion.
One of the boys, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga from France, opened his account today with a win over Australia's David Jeflea. However, it was by no means a straightforward victory for the recently crowned US Open boys champion. Tsonga got off to a shaky start, allowing Jeflea to take the first set on a tie-break 76(5). The French boy soon remembered what was at stake, namely 250 ranking points and the chance to move to the head of the rankings, and made light work of Jeflea in the remaining two sets, emerging the winner 67(5) 62 61. Marcos Baghdatis from Cyprus, Tsonga's main rival for the title, not only in Japan, but for the year-end title too, starts his campaign tomorrow.
All other seeds in action in the boys' draw safely booked their spots in the second round. The most emphatic victory of the day went to No.7 seed Kiril Tcherveniachki from New Zealand, who allowed his opponent, Tomohiro Ishii (JPN) only two games, to claim his win 61 61.
In the girls' draw No.2 seed Andrea Hlavackova (CZE) was even more ruthless in her dismissal of >Yi-Jie Du (CHN) who suffered the dreaded double bagel 60 60. Hlavackova is defending points from last year when she reached the semifinal here, and will be hoping to continue as emphatically throughout the week.
Rain interrupted play and so only two other seeds were able to progress through to the second round, No.4 seed Sheng-Nan Sun (CHN) dispatched Ayaka Igarashi (JPN) 62 60 and Rui Du (CHN) made even lighter work of Yurina Koshino (JPN) 61 60.
Visit ITFJuniors.com daily for all the action and results from Japan.
Photos by Hiromasa Mano
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