Wynne comfortably through in Jakarta Open first round

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

National number two Wynne Prakusya was on familiar ground at the US$25,000 Jakarta ITF Women's Open at the Hilton hotel on Wednesday, outclassing wildcard Maya Rosa in a straight sets win.

Another local wildcard, Lavinia Tananta, sprang a huge surprise later in the day with a 6-4, 6-3 win over third seed Tina Schiechtl of Austria, whose WTA ranking of 272 is 930 spots higher than her.

Fifth seeded Wynne, currently world ranked 290 and the de facto top player in the country in the prolonged absence of injured Angelique "Angie" Widjaja, has trained on the Central Jakarta hotel's hard courts from an early age.

Her familiarity with the venue showed against 19-year-old Maya, who she ran from corner to corner with deep groundstrokes in a 6-2, 6-2 victory.

"I like this court and I felt very comfortable today," the 24- year-old from Surakarta, Central Java, said.

Wynne, who is attempting to win her fourth ITF event this year after titles in Tarakan, Ho Chi Minh City and St. Joseph, Missouri, broke early to lead 4-1 in the first set before closing it out 6-2.

In the second, she continued to hit precise groundstrokes and made few unforced errors in racing to a 4-0 lead. Maya hit a few winners, including some unreturnable forehands and drop shots, but Wynne was too strong on the day.

With Wynne's win, all three members of the country's women's squad for the upcoming 23rd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games who are playing the event advanced to the second round. On Tuesday, 482nd Ayu-Fani Damayanti and Septi Mende posted wins (the team's fourth member, Romana Tedjakusuma, is currently playing in the U.S.).

Injury-prone Sandy Gumulya, world ranked 673, came back from a first-set loss for a 2-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4 win over Nice Clerico of Italy, world no. 597.

Top seed Ryoko Fuda of Japan thrashed qualifier Abby Hedges of Australia 6-2, 6-0 on Wednesday, while second seed Chan Yung-Jan of Chinese Taipei defeated local wildcard Jessy Rompies 6-1, 6-0.

On Thursday, Ayu will challenge second seed Chan, Septi takes on sixth seed Montinee Tangphong of Thailand, who blanked Lee Wei Ping of Singapore 6-0, 6-0, and Wynne will face world no. 507 Hwang I-Hsuan of Chinese Taipei, who ousted Benedetta Sabatini of Italy 6-1, 6-3.

"I have a chance to win my match against Hwang as I have met her before and I won," Wynne, who reached a career-high ranking of 74 in August 2002, said of her 6-2, 6-1 victory in Tarakan earlier this year.

"But I know Hwang is a good player because she has also beaten players with world rankings in the 200s."