Sampras leads top seeds into Japan Open third round
Sampras leads top seeds into Japan Open third round
TOKYO (AFP): Led by world number one Pete Sampras, all the men's favorites blitzed their way into the third round with straight-sets victories at the Japan Open tennis tournament here yesterday.
The American defending champion, who clinched the top ranking a year ago by winning the Japan title here, notched a 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) win over Andrei Olhovskiy of Russia, stretching his match- winning streak to 17 this season.
Three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker of Germany, third seed, joined Sampras with the same 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) scoreline over Stephane Simian of France, while second-seeded Michael Chang downed fellow American Doug Flach 6-1, 7-6 (7/2).
Former world number one Ivan Lendl easily powered past Sebastien Lareau of Canada 6-1, 6-4.
Becker showed no ill-effect from his first-round loss to American Robbie Weiss in Osaka last week, firing a series of sparkling returns to force his opponent to make volley errors.
The German unleashed a lightning service return winner down the line to convert his double break chance to take an early 3-1 lead and another forehand pass at 30-40 in the ninth gave him the set.
Simian broke Becker in the first game of the second set, which appeared to be his only break opportunity throughout the 88- minute match, but the German soon steadied himself and never gave another chance to the Frenchman.
"I could have done it easier and quicker, but he didn't want to give the match in the second set, he played some good shots, but I played a pretty solid tie-breaker," Becker said.
Heavy pressure
Chang, the winner at Jakarta and Philadelphia this season, seemed to have the match in control when he took the first easily, repeatedly retaliating with a series of lightning shots against the serve-and-volleyer.
But Flach, younger brother of doubles star Ken, put heavy pressure on the 1989 French Open champion by attacking his second serve and getting to the net, which forced Chang into mis-hitting his hard-shot strokes to go down 1-5 in the second set.
Chang, stood firm for the remainder of the 85-minute match, and was given two mini-breaks on Flach's double faults in the crucial tie-breaker to have a comfortable 4-1 lead and went on to win it 7-2.
In the third round, Chang will take on another American, Chuck Adams, who breezed past Hendrik Dreekman of Germany 6-3, 6-3.
Other seeds -- Americans Aaron Krickstein, Patrick McEnroe and Jonathan Stark, and Henrik Holm of Sweden -- safely went through, but eighth seed Amos Mansdorf of Israel and 13th seed Greg Rusedski of Canada failed to clear the second round.
Mansdorf went down to David Wheaton 3-6, 7-5, 1-6, and Rusedski bowed to Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (5/7).
On the women's side, two-time defending champion Kimiko Date fought off fellow Japanese Naoko Kijimuta for a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win, while Taiwan's number one, Wang Shi-ting, crashed to hard- hitting American Marianne Werdel 3-6, 2-6.
Sabine Appelmans of Belgium, Amy Frazier and Patty Fendick of the United States, and Naoko Sawamatsu of Japan also joined Date in the quarter-finals.