Paes sets up all-Indian semis in men's tennis championship

JAKARTA (JP): Top seeded Leander Paes survived a thrilling three-setter against struggling South Korean Kim Bong-soo 6-7 (2- 7), 6-3, 7-6 (7-1) yesterday to set up an Indian civil war against Mahesh Bhupathi in the semifinals of the Indonesia Men's Challenger tennis championships.

Tenacious Bhupathi was also forced to play a stretched set before taming Marian Vajda of Slovakia 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 for a place in today's semifinals of the US$50,000 tournament.

The other semifinal today will pit Croatian Igor Saric, the 6- 4, 6-3 winner over Indonesia's Benny Wijaya, against second seed Oscar Ortiz of Mexico who dumped Ari Nathan of the U.S. out of the championships with a 6-4, 6-3 win yesterday.

Former Wimbledon and the U.S. Open junior champion Paes looked out of form and needed a second wind to overcome the never-say- die, 32-year-old South Korean in more than three hours of play.

Paes had Kim running, but tallied too many errors which cost him a first set deficit. Smarting from the first set down, Paes drilled his forehands to the left of his 11-year older rival on his way to forcing the decider.

Paes kept on the pressure in the last rubber which was marred with three bad calls, firing his powerful groundstrokes from the baseline. Kim answered with his well-aimed backhand slices which several times left Paes running awkwardly. The hard-fought but error-prone battle had to end in a tie-breaker after both players denied broken services twice apiece.

Desperate Kim ran out of steam in the tie-break, hitting every return into the net which allow Paes to race to a 4-0 lead. The South Korean went on tallying errors to earn Paes the semifinal berth.

"He's more powerful than I," Kim admitted after the match.

Paes, who received special congratulations from a little boy, Irfan, after the match, said he was as tired as his opponent and he had to labor to win the match. Paes did not take a break after his Asian Games campaign in Hiroshima.

"But there will be a clean match tomorrow. We will give our best," Paes said of his game with compatriot Bhupathi. The Indian pair also made it through the final in the doubles event.

Doubles

Paes and Bhupathi blasted their giant-killing way to ousting second seeded pair of Ortiz and Nathan straight sets 6-4, 6-4 and are now waiting for the winners of the other semifinal which pits top seeds Austrian Andrew Kratzmann and German Martin Zumpft against British third seed doubles of Andrew Foster and Danny Sapsforo.

Indonesian number one Benny was another one to fall victim to the tiring Asian Games competition, his luck proving not as good as Paes'. Benny lost his grip in his easy defeat to Saric in about an hour of play.

"I was so exhausted that I could not play as I had planned," said Paes' fellow Asian Games bronze medalist Benny. The fourth seed underwent his busiest program in the past month. He led the national team in the Davis Cup tie against Switzerland just a week before leaving for Hiroshima. (amd)