Van Roost, Nemeckova to fight for Wismilak title

SURABAYA (JP): Top seeded Dominique van Roost reached her appointed place in the final of the 1997 Wismilak International women's tennis tournament by beating Australia's Rachel McQuillan in straight sets here yesterday.

The Belgian defeated McQuillan 6-2, 7-5, to set up a final showdown today with Lenka Nemeckova of the Czech Republic. She beat Maria Alejandra Vento of Venezuela 6-4, 6-3 at the Embong Sawo tennis complex.

In the doubles event, Canadians Maureen Drake/Renata Kolbovic struggled to overcome Khoo Chin Bee of Malaysia/Yoriko Yamagishi of Japan 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 in the first semifinal.

They will play the winner of Nathalie Dechy/Sara Pitkowski of France versus Kerry-Anne Guse of Australia/Rika Hiraki of Japan.

The finals will be broadcast live by SCTV at 2:30 p.m.

Van Roost, world ranked 28, romped through the first set in 35 minutes. The Australian's resistance was limited to the first two games.

But 24-year-old Van Roost had to dig deep within herself in the second set as McQuillan discarded her usual baseline game and attacked.

McQuillan scraped back from a 2-4 deficit to level at 4-4. Both players held serve for 5-5. Van Roost then broke serve and held her own at love to take the match.

"In the first set, McQuillan made many unforced errors but in the second set she hit well on vital points," van Roost said after the match. "She fought harder and played more offensively than in the first set. It was very difficult."

Van Roost said her serve had faltered. "I had problems with my serve, especially when I got very nervous and the wind was getting worse. Then my serves became very bad."

"In the end, I was just trying to concentrate on my serve, not the match," she said.

McQuillan said the weather had been a factor: "Today was very hot and the wind was swirling. But I was getting better in the end and I thought I could go ahead 6-5. But she hit off the ground very well and she won the game."

Earlier, Nemeckova had beaten Vento in front of 600 spectators who rooted in vain for the attractive Venezuelan.

Vento took an early lead of 3-1 but the Czech broke back and held serve to draw even. Vento, 23, went ahead 4-3 but then lost three consecutive games and the set.

She committed many unforced errors in the second set to trail 2-5. Vento kept her hopes alive by breaking Nemeckova's serve but then failed to hold her own to lose the match.

"I was playing good from the baseline but Vento didn't miss anything. I really had to win points to win the game," Nemeckova said.

"I didn't really expect to go to the final but when I went through to the semifinals, I just thought about the next match."

Nemeckova, who lost to van Roost three years ago in a US$50,000 tournament in Southampton, England, said she would "just do my best" in today's final.

Van Roost said: "I would have rather played against Vento because I had watched her playing. Today she didn't play well.I hope I can win tomorrow."

The tournament, which is being held in conjunction with the centennial anniversary of the venue, provides US$31,860 to the champion and $15,030 to the runner-up. (nur/yan)