JP/10/tennis

JP/10/tennis

Yayuk wards off

a shocker at

Indonesia Open

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian third seed Yayuk Basuki frightened the home crowd but managed to overcome in a more than three hour thriller against Kristin Godridge of Australia 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7- 0), 6-4 and secure a quarterfinal berth at the US$100,000 Indonesia Women's Open yesterday.

Yayuk will now look for revenge against American Nicole Arendt, who beat her in the first round of the Volvo Open in Pattaya, Thailand.

Godridge, rated 170 in the world, was not very menacing to her world number 34 opponent at the outset as she produced four double faults and quickly trailed 2-5.

With her own serve at set point, however, Yayuk coughed up a slew of errors to concede a break. Yayuk squandered another break point as her backhand slice hit the net.

Godridge looked more confident and began taking to the net to take advantage of a struggling Yayuk. The Australian took the lead at 6-5, but Yayuk managed to force a tie-break, following successful forays to the net.

Yayuk fired a powerful forehand to take a commanding 4-1 lead in the tie-break. Another string of unforced errors cost her the early tiebreak advantage, and ultimately the set as Godridge took the last point with a passing shot.

Yayuk maintained her error ridden play in the second set despite producing six aces. She almost allowed a defeat as Godridge broke her serve in the 11th game. Godridge gifted the Indonesian a double fault to make amends for her service break and leading to another tie-break.

In other action, Japan's Nana Miyagi, Yayuk's doubles partner, used both hands to overcome Australian Rennae Stubbs' powerful serve and volley with a 7-5, 7-5 second round win. Miyagi hopes to prove a hurdle to top seed Wang Shi-ting of Chinese Taipei in their quarterfinals encounter today.

Miyagi, who entered the main draw after sixth seed Sandrine Testud of France pulled out of the annual event due to a lower back strain, drilled shots to the left of her Australian rival while waiting for her to make errors.

There was nothing special about Miyagi's two-handed backhands and forehands, but her accurate ball placement and patience. A tiny crowd who threw their supports to the Japanese world number 239 played havoc with Stubbs. The Australian asked the umpire to silence the annoying spectators.

Australian fourth seed Kristin Radford bounced back from a first set defeat to earn a 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 6-3 victory over Andrea Strnadova of the Czech Republic. Radford now meets Rachell McQuillan in an Australian affair in today's quarterfinals. (amd)