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