Taipei's Wang to meet

Taipei's Wang to meet
Yayuk in Indonesia Open

JAKARTA (JP): Top seed Wang Shi-ting of Chinese Taipei rallied
to win the first set over Linda Niemansverdriet of the
Netherlands yesterday, which proved to be enough to give the
Taiwanese a third round berth at the Indonesia Open.

Niemansverdriet lost the opening set 6-7 (0-7) and trailed 1-3
in the second when she resigned because of a hamstring injury.
She fell to the same opponent in the 1991 junior French Open.

Wang is now only one match away from a third meeting in the
budding rivalry with home favorite Yayuk Basuki. Wang is 2-0
against Yayuk. They are highly expected to meet in Saturday's
semifinals.

The baseliner Wang was in trouble against her Dutch opponent,
who used a hard serve and strong volley to upset Yayuk in the
first round of the Japan Open early this month. Niemansverdriet
earned a service break in the third game, following a successful
approach to the net for an unbeatable volley.

The Dutch girl defied the gap in world rankings between her
and the world number 34 when she blasted an ace to take a 3-1
lead and set the pace.

The eighth game saw Wang force a catalog of rallies which was
the proper remedy for Niemansverdriet's serve and volley.
Niemansverdriet produced two successful approaches but double
faulted twice to allow a break point. A widely floating forehand
cost the lanky Dutch player her first service break and helped
Wang level the tie at 4-4.

Niemansverdriet maintained her heroic performance to save her
own serve, before the battle went into a tie-break. The world
number 185, however, could not match Wang's grit in the deciding
rallies. The Taiwanese hit all corners to blank her opponent, who
committed two double faults during the tie-break.

The Dutch lucky loser, who entered the second set with a
bandaged thigh, dropped another game to trail 0-2 before she
fought tooth and nail to save her serve. Wang kept up the
pressure to end Niemansverdriet's 65-minute struggle.

"Today I played better than in my first round match," Wang
said. Wang will play either lucky loser Nana Miyagi of Japan or
Rennae Stubbs of Australia tomorrow.

Arendt advances

Eighth seed Nicole Arendt of the United States moved closer to
another encounter in the quarters with Yayuk as she outplayed
South Africa's Tessa Price 6-4, 6-2 yesterday.

Arendt, 114 in the world, registered two breaks and struck one
in the first set. She added two more breaks to go 5-1 up in the
second before wrapping up the match in one hour and 10 minutes.

Arendt tamed Yayuk in the rubber-set in their first round
match at the Pattaya Open in Thailand two weeks ago.

South Korean Park Sung-hee's hopes of running farther were
dashed at the hands of another South African, Dinky van Rensburg.
Park dominated the early battle with a 3-0 lead, only to crash to
a 6-7 (3-7), 2-6 defeat.

Van Rensburg made up for her numerous unforced errors in the
first set to sail unchallenged throughout the second. She
snatched the last three games, including a break, to secure a
quarterfinals slot. The South African now meets Argentinean
second seed Florencia Labat who beat Nancy Feber of Belgium 6-3,
6-4. (amd)