Yayuk faces toughest ever Wimbledon draw

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)