Yayuk blasts her way to semifinals
Yayuk blasts her way to semifinals
MONTREAL (Agencies): Indonesian unseeded Yayuk Basuki blasted her way to the semifinals of the Canadian Open women's tennis championships after scoring yet another upset, 2-6, 6-2, 7-5, win over 13th seed American Amy Frazier here on Friday.
The surprise victory, Yayuk's third in a row in the US$926,250 tournament, opens up a chance of writing a piece of history in her six-year career as she now plays joint world number one Monica Seles, also from the U.S.
Defending champion Seles had an easy passage to the semifinals, sending sixth seed Magdalena Maleeva packing in a 6- 4, 6-2 win.
"I gave her a lot a free points and finally she took advantage and suddenly she was ahead 40-15 and I didn't realize it," 26- year-old Yayuk, the second-round conqueror of Croatian world number four Iva Majoli, said when referring to the final set.
"Then I thought, 'Oh my God, it's match point,' so I said to myself, 'Look, I've been here for three sets now, why don't I just give it a try one more time'", she said.
It was Yayuk's second semifinal appearance in a U.S. Open warm-up tournament.
Yayuk has tasted Seles just once in the Australian Open third round four years ago, when Seles was on her pinnacle as world number one. Then Yugoslavian Seles routed Yayuk 6-1, 6-1 in just 59 minutes.
But Yayuk, filled with confidence following her giant-killing run, could do better now. Seles, who remains under the shadow of her co-number one Steffi Graf of Germany, has lost some of the dazzle which shot her to the top of the world several years ago.
Seles won the Australian Open in January for the first time since her comeback last year, but was no longer invincible. She has suffered four losses to underrated players since then, two of them produced by Czech Jana Novotna.
The most upsetting defeat of Seles was in the Wimbledon second-round scored by Slovakia's Katarina Studenikova. Seles last crashed to Novotna in the Olympic women's singles quarterfinals.
Not satisfied
Although winning the match, but Seles did not seem satisfied with her own playing.
"I didn't play that great," Seles said. "She was hitting the ball pretty hard. I don't think I was doing anything very well. I wasn't hitting too many winners ... I wasn't going for my shot. But, when it really mattered, I played well and that's how I won."
Maleeva blamed her serve for her loss, saying her first serve was weak and will need improvement before the U.S. Open at the end of this month.
Seles won last year's tournament, her first event back after missing 27 1/2 months recovering from being stabbed during a tournament in Hamburg, Germany in April, 1993.
Sanchez Vicario, who lost the gold medal match to Davenport in the Olympics, stopped the run of unseeded Florencia Labat of Argentina, 6-4, 6-4. She has not dropped a set en route to the semifinals.
Ranked second in the world, Sanchez Vicario has reached five finals this year, winning the Family Circle Cup Tennis in April and the Hamburg Open in May.
"It was tough playing her," Sanchez Vicario said of her win over the 25-year-old Labat. "She has everything, a slice, a flat ball. It was kind of hard to read where she was going. But I went for it. It's nice to have a tough match and be able to put it away."
Labat said her limited experience playing in major tournaments was a factor in her loss.
"It's not the same to play on center court," Labat said. "You have to be used to playing there."
"In a big tournament like this, it was my best performance so far," she added. "I played good this week. I hope I can keep playing on this level."
Fifth seed Mary Joe Fernandez of the United States completed her match that was suspended Thursday night in the morning by defeating 15th-seeded Frenchwoman Tauziat, 6-1, 6-1. But the Olympic doubles gold medalist fell in her afternoon match to compatriot Po, 6-3, 6-2.