Tennis: Leanne's day in the sun comes to an end

By Foster Niumata

There are times when losers are winners, when the outcome of a tennis match does not equal the experience of playing in it.

You could have asked Leanne Baker about that yesterday. In the ASB Bank Classic at Stanley St, the match score said she lost.

Sure, Baker lost to defending champion Dominique van Roost 2-6 2-6 in second-round action, but Baker was not talking like a loser. She won more attention in a single afternoon than she had in her brief career as a tennis pro.

"I proved that I can play with the big guns," said Baker, a 17-year-old for one more day, who half her Te Awamutu home town seemed to have come north to support.

Baker is ranked 553rd, armed with her first wildcard into her first big WTA main draw.

On Tuesday, she pulled off one of the Classic's all-time upsets, against No 57 Miriam Oremans.

Yesterday, she returned to the stadium court with a renewed self-belief, some extra ginger in her game to match the dye in her hair.

She gave her best but she needed more than she had against van Roost, a 25-year-old Belgian who has won four titles, touched No 9 in October, and earned $US1.2 million to Baker's pocket-money $US4765.

Baker, whose previous best win before the Classic was over someone ranked 470, was paralysed on the baseline by van Roost's penetrating strokes.

The net, where Baker can dominate, stayed on the horizon.

"She kept me at the back the whole time. There was no way to get to the net," Baker said.

"I didn't serve quite as well as I thought I could but that's just down to experience. I didn't feel out of place at all."

The budding professional within then became evident: "I was buzzing yesterday but I'm down to earth now just because I've got to think about my next tournament now."

That will be the Junior Australian Open later this month. Rewa Hudson, with whom Baker lost their first-round doubles, heads to Florida for three $US10,000 futures events with Shelley Stephens, while Niki Tippins will stay home to play local events.

They regroup for the Wellington ITF tournament in February, then Fed Cup in Thailand.

Van Roost, complimentary of Baker's potential, moves on to meet unseeded American Kristina Brandi, who reached her second big WTA quarter-final by upsetting eighth seed Maria Alejandra Vento, last year's runner-up in Auckland's rival Australian event on the Gold Coast.

Vento was 4-1 up in the third set, but a gutsy Brandi ran everything down to win 4-6 6-3 6-4.

"I kind of got a second wind," said Brandi, who has never met van Roost before.

Nor has third seed Julie Halard-Decugis, who crushed Florencia Labat in 49 minutes, previously faced Maria Antonia Sanchez Lorenzo, who upset sixth seed Tara Snyder 6-0 6-4 to equal her wins on hardcourt - two - on the main WTA tour during all of 1998.

Another first-time match pits fourth seed Barbara Schett, who knocked out 1996 champ Sandra Cacic 6-4 6-2, against fifth seed Lisa Raymond, who had to break Japanese qualifier Miho Saeki in their final game to win another marathon 6-4 3-6 6-4.

Seventh seed Chanda Rubin has a 2-0 record over second seed Silvia Farina, last year's runner-up. Both have hit the Classic running.

Pictured: Leanne Baker in action against Dominique van Roost in the Classic at Stanley St yesterday. HERALD PICTURE / KENNY RODGER