HOBART, Australia, 11 January 2007 — Seven-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams was eliminated from the quarterfinals of the Hobart International in three sets here yesterday.
The American, ranked 94 after an injury-blighted last season, went down to Austrian Sybille Bammer, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, leaving her short of match conditioning ahead of next week’s Australian Open in Melbourne.
India’s Sania Mirza will take on the tournament top seed Anna Chakvetadze in the other semifinal. Sania defeated her close friend and doubles partner Alicia Molik of Australia, 6-4, 6-1 in their last-eight match yesterday to reach her first semifinal in an Australian WTA Tour event. Sania is having a great tournament having eliminated fourth seed Maria Kirilenko in the first round. Chakvetadze defeated seventh-seed Jie Zheng of China, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1. Compatriot Vasilisa Bardina triumphed 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 in a grueling three-hour match against Catalina Castano of Colombia.
Ancic Battles Qualifier, Weather
for Heineken Open Win
In Auckland, second seed Mario Ancic had to battle hard against both the elements and a lowly ranked qualifier to secure a second round place in the Heineken Open here yesterday.
Ancic, with a world ranking of nine, won 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) but was shown no deference by Czech qualifier Lukas Rosol, playing his first Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tour match. Ancic took a service break to close out the first set 6-3 but had to fight back from dropping serve against his 288th-ranked opponent in the second.
The Croatian broke back twice and was set to serve for the match at 6-5 before play was stopped for more than two hours by rain. The rain interruption caused more disruption for the tournament schedule after Tuesday’s play was lost totally to bad weather.When play resumed Rosol broke Ancic to force the second set into a tiebreak, which the Croatian took 7-4.
Ancic was the beaten finalist at Auckland last year and went on to make the quarterfinals at the French Open and Wimbledon.
He feels he has the game to take him higher than his current world ranking of nine. Former world No. 1 and sixth seed Juan Carlos Ferrero was knocked out in his first round match 6-4, 6-2 by Olympic Champion Nicolas Massu of Chile.
The Spaniard looked rusty against the sharper Massu, who will face Juan Ignaciu Chela of Argentina, a 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 winner over Nicolas Mahut of France. Dan King-Turner, New Zealand’s sole singles player in the tournament, went down 6-3, 6-3 to Argentinian qualifier Juan Monaco.
