Angelique beats Sucha in Volvo Open

Agencies, Jakarta

Indonesia's Angelique Widjaja lost only six points in her 6-1, 6-1 pounding of fifth-seeded Martina Sucha in the opening round of the US$110,000 Volvo Open in Pattaya, Thailand, on Wednesday.

In the match, which was originally to have been played on Tuesday, Angie, as the 17-year-old Indonesian is nicknamed, made the best of her serves, landing eight aces, according to her coach Deddy Tedjamukti.

"Sucha got her points in game four in the opening set and game three in the second set. On each occasion, Angie came back and didn't give her opponent the chance to regroup," Deddy told The Jakarta Post.

"I expected it to be a tough game, but it turned out to be an easy game for Angie. Angie's serves resulted in Sucha's hitting many unforced errors," he said.

Deddy applauded the victory as a good start in Angie's quest to climb up the world rankings from her current 91st.

In other matches, top seeds Tatiana Panova and Tamarine Tanasugarn both advanced to the quarterfinals, but neither had easy matches, AFP reported.

And third-seeded Henrieta Nagyova lost 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 to Lina Krasnoroutskaya of Russia.

Russian top-seed Panova beat Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus 6-4 6-1, and second-seeded Tamarine of Thailand struggled to a 7-5, 7-6 (8-6) victory over Akiko Morigami.

Tamarine faced a set point at 5-4 in the first set and another four in the second, but held off the challenge to set up a clash with South Korea's Cho Yoon-jeong, who upset seventh-seed Czech Denisa Chladkova 6-3, 7-6 (8/6).

Although Tamarine broke serve twice to establish a 3-0 lead, she allowed her Japanese opponent back into the match and never looked comfortable in the windy conditions.

Her serve bordered on the pathetic, and neither player put much pace behind the ball in what was, despite the drama of Tamarine's fightback, a dismal contest.

Tamarine saved the set point at 4-5 with her only ace of the match, then broke to lead 6-5 with a fine crosscourt winner. Even then she had to fight off two break points in the next game before securing the set.

In the second set, the Thai native saved two set points at 4-5 and then broke Morigami to love to lead 6-5.

But she failed to serve out the match, dropping her own serve to love, and then recovered from 4-6 in the tiebreaker.