Tennis: Pocket battleship eyes glory

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Cara Black has never won a title on the WTA tennis tour. Today she has the chance to win two.

The 20-year-old Zimbabwean sixth seed continued her great run at the ASB Bank Classic with wins in both singles and doubles semifinals at Stanley St yesterday.

Success in both this afternoon would see Black, ranked 50th in the world, as the first double winner since South African Elna Reinach won the singles and doubles in 1993.

She meets the tournament's second seed Anne Kremer (ranked 31 on the WTA rankings) in her first-ever singles final and later joins Alex Fusai to play Slovenia's Patricia Wartusch and Barbara Schwartz in the doubles.

With the singles finalists from Zimbabwe and Luxembourg - tennis backwaters with only three players between them on the WTA Tour - the superpowers are missing, but the quality of play has adequately compensated for that.

With her brother Byron watching from the sideline after arriving on Thursday night to prepare for next week's Heineken Open, Black overcame a tentative start to beat Holland's Amanda Hopmans in the first semifinal.

She dropped her first serve and quickly fell 1-3 behind before reeling off nine straight games to take not only the first set 6-3 - with her only ace of the match - but race to 4-0 in the second before Hopmans rallied to close to 4-3.

It was but a temporary stay as Black held serve for 5-3 and then swept through the next with Hopmans failing to win a point on serve.

"The body is getting a bit tired but I'm okay," said Black. "I was nervous at the start as I thought about the chance to be in my first final but I settled down. I won nine [games] in a row but then lost three but I was forcing her to make a lot of errors.

"I was not really thinking about making two finals when I went on court but once it got to that last game and I had three match points I went for it."

The score in the second semifinal was also 6-3 6-3 with Kremer always in control over American Meghann Shaughnessy, who warmed up for the tournament wearing borrowed clothing after her luggage went missing en route to Auckland.

Kremer dropped her serve only once - in the fourth game of the second set - and was always in control en route to her second final.

She lost her first in Thailand last year but beat Black in their only previous meeting when Black retired, though illness, in a Fed Cup singles.

"Because I will be playing my second final I might have a slight edge but, more importantly, I have to play my own game," said Kremer. "I felt better as the week has gone on as I had a good month off before coming here.

"After losing in the first round here last year, it is a nice turnaround to be in the final this time."

Black and Fusai raced through the first set of their doubles semifinal in just 33 minutes but needed nearly an hour to finish it off. They were leading 4-1 in the second but dropped three successive service games.

The top seeds eventually won it 7-4 in a tiebreaker but face a tough task against their unseeded opponents who have the advantage of having a day off after winning their semifinal in the late game on Thursday night.