Romana saves host's face at Challenger

Romana saves host's face at Challenger

JAKARTA (JP): Romana Tedjakusuma salvaged Indonesia's pride at
the Women's Challenger tennis championships as her solid
partnership with South Korean Park Sung-hee upset the Slovakian
third seeded pair of Tina Krizan and Patricia Markova in their
second round battle yesterday.

Romana, whose made an early exit in the singles, and Park
scored a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 win to gain a semifinal berth in the
US$50,000 tournament. The mixed nationality duo aim to continue
their giant-killing run when they meet second seeds Yone Kamio
and Naoko Kijimuta of Japan in today's semifinals.

The Japanese doubles proved too strong for American Corina
Moriaru and Daphne van der Zande of Belgium, who showed no mercy
in their 6-0, 6-0 win.

Romana's national doubles partner, Natalia Soetrisno, fought
tooth and nail with her Australian ally Shannon Peters but they
weren't enough to tame the other Japanese pair Hiromi Nagano and
Yuka Tanaka. Natalia and Peters fell 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 7-5 in a
marathon match which saw a downpour of broken services. The
Japanese broke their opponents' services five times but also
dropped five services.

Nagano and Tanaka set up a semifinal clash against Australian
top seeds Catherine Barclay and Kerry-Anne Guse who disposed of
Hong Kong's Tan Ming and Australian Kristin Godridge 6-2, 6-0.

Earlier yesterday, Nagano sailed to a 6-2, 6-4 victory over
Godridge in their singles second round match. Yesterday's singles
contest, however, belonged to Austrian Andrea Tunko when Romana's
conqueror blasted her way to the third round with an upset 7-6
(7-4), 1-6, 7-5 win over Kirrily Sharpe of Australia. (amd)