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| 10 Oct 2003 | |
| Fancied players stay on course |
The top two seeds in both the boys’ and girls’ singles are
still on course to meet in their respective finals after the fifth day of play
at the Osaka Super Juniors in Japan.
The easiest winner of the day was Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA)
who thrashed Martin Fischer (AUT), the last remaining unseeded player, 61 60 to
reach the semifinals. The French boy has only once failed to make the semifinal
stage on the ITF Junior Circuit this year .He will now meet fifth seed Sun-Yong
Kim (KOR) who upset third-seeded Tai-Wei Liu (TPE) 61 62, to reach his first
Grade A semifinal, after returning to form this week following a run of five
straight defeats.
In the other quarterfinals, top seed Marcos Baghdatis (CYP)
eased past seventh seed Kiril Tcherveniachki (NZL) 63 64 to earn a meeting with
fourth seed, Karan Rastogi (IND), who fought back to overcome Woong-Sun Jun
(KOR) 26 63 63. This is the third year in a row that Marcos Baghdatis has
reached the semifinal stage of the tournament and he will be hoping to match
his achievement of winning the tournament in 2001, while Rastogi having gone
one stage further than last year has already surpassed his previous best
perfomance in a Grade A tournament.
In the girls’ singles, second seed Andrea Hlavackova(CZE)
had to battle back from the loss of the first set before halting the challenge
of eleventh seed, Mari Andersson (SWE), 36 75 63 and reaching the semifinals
for the second successive year. Her opponent in tomorrow’s semifinals will be
sixth seed Rui Du (CHN) who eliminated sixteenth seed, Marina Erakovic (NZL) 63
63, thereby improving on her quarterfinal appearance at this event last year.
Top seed Emma Laine (FIN) continued her smooth progress with
a routine defeat of Yung-Jan Chan (TPE), seeded five, 62 63 to reach her third
Grade A semifinal of the year. Her opponent tomorrow will be Veronika Chvojkova
(CZE), who ousted fourth seed Sheng-Nan Sun (CHN) 63 60. This will be the
second meeting between the two players this year; Laine having won their
previous meeting in Croatia in April.
Laine and Hlavackova will also play in the girls’ doubles
final tomorrow against Nozomi Aiba (JPN) and Yung-Jan Chan. The boys’ doubles
will see Australian top seeds Lachlan Ferguson and Joel Kerley take on second
seeds from India, Arunprakash Rajagopalan and Divij Sharan in that final
Check
itfjuniors.com for daily match reports and results
Click
here for drawsheets
Photographs
by Hiromasa Mano
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