COMMACK, New York, 27 August 2004 — Paradorn Srichaphan moved a step closer to his third successive Long Island Cup title when he battled past veteran South African Wayne Ferreira 7-6, 7-5 on Wednesday to reach the quarterfinals.

The fourth-seeded Thai is bidding to emulate former world No. 1 Ivan Lendl by becoming only the second man to win the tournament three years in a row.

The 32-year-old Ferreira, set to retire at the end of the season, gave Paradorn’s supporters a scare when he broke serve to lead 2-1 in the first set.

Paradorn retrieved the break quickly but Ferreira matched him from the baseline to force a tiebreak.

An early forehand error from the South African set the tone as Paradorn led 4-0 and, although Ferreira fought back to trail 4-3, the Thai took the tiebreak 7-3.

Instead of knocking the stuffing out of him, the loss of the first set seemed to inspire Ferreira.

Paradorn scrambled to save break points in two service games at the start of the second set but then missed four chances of his own to go ahead.

With a second tiebreak looking inevitable, Paradorn finally broke Ferreira in the 11th game before serving out for victory in the last warm-up event for next week’s US Open.

Paradorn will now enjoy a day off before his quarterfinal against seventh seed Joachim Johansson of Sweden, who put out Austrian Stefan Koubek 6-2, 6-4 in the night match.

Earlier, Russian Dmitry Tursunov won a marathon battle with American Jan-Michael Gambill 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 in two hours 55 minutes.

It equaled the longest match recorded in the event’s history, a first-round encounter in 1993 between Jan Siemerink of the Netherlands and Brazilian Luis Mattar.

Tursunov now meets 10th seed Jurgen Melzer after the Austrian beat another Russian, Igor Andreev, 6-3, 6-4.

Dechy, Dementieva Advance at New Haven Event

France’s Nathalie Dechy, the eighth seed, outlasted Japan’s Akiko Morigami 6-0, 3-6, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of the 585,000 WTA New Haven event on Wednesday.

Dechy next faces American Jennifer Capriati, who overpowered France’s Tatiana Golovin in their second round match.

Russia’s Nadia Petrova, the fifth seed, fell to wild card Lisa Raymond, of the US, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Raymond will play Daniela Hantuchova, who beat American Marissa Irvin, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3.

Serbia and Montenegro’s Jelena Jankovic cruised past Croatian Jelena Kostanic 6-2, 7-5. Jankovic booked a quarterfinal match with second seed Elena Dementieva, of Russia, who crushed Luxembourg’s Claudine Schaul 6-2, 6-2 on Wednesday.

First prize in the final US Open warm-up event is $93,000.