Yayuk faces toughest ever Wimbledon draw
JAKARTA (JP): This year's Wimbledon tennis championships will give Indonesia's Yayuk Basuki her heaviest task ever, despite the fact that she will play on her favorite grass court.
Yayuk, ranked number 26 in the world, and having a fairly good Wimbledon record, by reaching the fourth round in the past three years, will meet Ukrainian Natalia Medvedeva in the opening round, according to the draws released yesterday.
Yayuk has beaten Medvedeva, the sister of Andrei Medvedev, twice on grass courts in Eastbourne and Wimbledon last year and should have a great chance to make it three.
If she clears her first hurdle, Yayuk sets up a possible powerful game against American Debbie Graham. The two have never met, but the odds favor the Indonesian grass court specialist.
But Yayuk, who has yet to earn a title this season, faces a thrilling third-round against Australia Open champion Mary Pierce of France, who is seeded fifth here. Yayuk recollects a victorious moment in 1992 when she beat Pierce, who was, then, in a heated quarrel with her controversial father.
Pierce is making her Wimbledon debut after a shaky performance in the French Open early this month. Last year's French Open finalist crashed to Croatia's teenager Iva Majoli in the fourth round.
However, Yayuk can survive if she manages to take the charge consistently against baseliner Pierce. Tennis pundits in Jakarta say there will be no surprise if Yayuk beats Pierce, predicting that Yayuk could even chalk up a historical success by reaching the quarterfinals for the first time.
In the top half, Steffi Graf, once a child prodigy herself, was drawn for a mouthwatering first round clash against rising Swiss wondergirl Martina Hingis, Reuters reported.
The German top seed and five-times champion, upset in last year's opening round by American Lori McNeil, probably has less to fear from the 14-year-old Swiss when they meet next week.
But the French Open champion will provide an intriguing examination of the growing maturity and strokeplay which has swept Hingis up to 19th place on the women's rankings in her first full year on the women's tour.
In a women's draw which exceeded the men's for potential first round drama, the Graf-Hingis clash vies for comparison with one between two Americans, seventh-seeded Lindsay Davenport and Gigi Fernandez, who bowed as an unseeded semifinalist to Martina Navratilova a year ago.
Hingis, the Wimbledon and French junior champion last year, and Fernandez were victims of the luck of the draw which underlined the importance of having seeded places at Wimbledon.
Ranked 19 and 18 respectively, they were just outside the 16 players from the top 17 who were seeded.
Elsewhere, the women's seeds were treated kindly, though number two Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, loser to Graf in the French final which she has won twice, is set up for a third-round fight against 1990 Wimbledon finalist Zina Garrison-Jackson.
The men's draw resulted in some interesting tests for the top seeds, though not in the opening rounds. Third-seeded Boris Becker drew Alberto Berasategui, the Spaniard who was a French Open finalist last year but whose grass court form is so sparse he is unseeded despite being ranked 12th in the world.
Titleholder Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic, seeded second and fourth, will not meet in the final as they did last year in a slam-bang service battle condemned as stultifyingly boring by some observers after Sampras won in three sets.
They will clash in the semifinals this time if both get that far, Becker meeting top seed and world number one Andre Agassi in the other semifinal barring upsets along the way.
Agassi will begin against a qualifier to be decided later this week but should confront power-serving compatriot David Wheaton in the third round.
Michael Stich, the 1991 champion now seeded ninth, faces dangerous Dutchman Jacco Eltingh in his first test and two rounds later could meet fellow German Marc Goellner, who took Sampras to three sets in the Queen's semifinals on Sunday. (amd)