Tennis: Up-and-comers showing no mercy

By TERRY MADDAFORD

The home of Auckland tennis is living up to its reputation as a graveyard for seeded players.

A day after top seed Sandrine Testud (France) was sent packing from the Stanley St courts by Jill Craybas, Austrian second seed Barbara Schett had her time at the ASB Bank Classic cut short by another American qualifier, Allison Bradshaw, 6-7, 6-3, 4-6.

With the top four seeds already out, the tournament has been thrown wide open.

Last year's finalists, Anne Kremer and Cara Black, are among the four surviving seeds and on course for another final showdown.

Luxembourg's Kremer needed three sets in the late, late game on Tuesday night to beat unseeded American Corina Morariu, but Black was under no such pressure in her second-round match yesterday, beating Japan's Shinobu Asagoe 6-1, 6-2 in just 55 minutes.

Black, who faces giant-killing Meilen Tu in today's quarter-finals - another match against a player she has yet to play in three years on the professional tour - said she was taking nothing for granted.

"Even with the top seeds out, the draw is still full of good players," Black said. "I was confident going into today's game. I struggled with my serve at the beginning but I got better. I am fitter this year than I was last time."

Bradshaw was the story of the day.

After going through qualifying without dropping a set (in three matches), she has had two tough three-set battles to reach the last eight.

Against Schett she began strongly, breaking the second seed in the first game and taking the second. Schett fought back to 2-2 and eventually, after both players had again dropped serve, took it to a tiebreaker.

Twenty-year-old Bradshaw, whose singles ranking has quickly risen to 134, raced through the tiebreak, winning 7-1 and tossing in her fourth ace along the way.

Schett fought back to take the second set 6-3, but quickly fell behind in the third, dropping her second service game.

Bradshaw, whose mother Val Zeigenfuss was one of the original nine players who broke away from the US LTA to form the Virginia Slims Tour, overcame a disputed line call on what would have been her sixth ace, to take a 5-3 lead before winning the third set 6-4 and the match in just under two hours.

"This is the first time I've played here," said Bradshaw, who has been suffering with a sinus infection. "I had nothing to lose. I just hope I have enough energy to get through. Barbara is the highest-ranked player I have beaten."

Tu handed top junior Maria Emilia Salerni a lesson in patience in winning their back court clash 6-2, 6-4.

Salerni again showed her shot selection is not always right. Tu, on the other hand, was prepared to wait and dictate.

Craybas' tournament ended when she crashed 5-7, 3-6 to unseeded Italian Francesca Schiavone in 80 minutes.