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| Wednesday, 12 February, 2003, 14:25 GMT Clijsters coasts into quarters ![]() Clijsters was in unforgiving form in Antwerp Tuesday's WTA round-up Diamond Games Second seed Kim Clijsters coasted into the quarter-finals in front of her home crowd in Antwerp with a convincing 6-3 6-2 victory against Myriam Casanova. But younger sister Elke failed to make it a family double, when she crashed out 6-2 6-3 to Switzerland's Patty Schnyder. Clijsters Sr was in confident mood from the outset of her match, taking just 50 minutes to despatch of her opponent. But afterwards she revealed she had suffered with from early tournament rust.
Clijsters Sr, who had to pull out of last year's event with flu, said: "I had to get used to playing indoor again, but it feels fine." She now remains on course to meet Venus Williams in the final. Williams faces Slovenia's Maja Matevzic in her opening match on Wednesday. Elsewhere in the first round, there was further Belgian success as Els Callens defeated Dally Randriantefy, from Madagascar, 6-1, 6-2. Czech Zuzana Ondraskova beat France's Emilie Loit 6-2 6-7 6-3, while number eight seed Nathalie Dechy overcame Luxembourg's Claudine Schaul 6-4 6-3. In the day's other game, Slovakian Janette Husarova overwhelmed Vanessa Henke, of Germany, 6-1 6-1. Qatar Open Fourth seed Tamarine Tanasugarn saw her hopes of a second successive title dashed by wild card Maria Vento-Kabchi. Tanasugarn was hoping to add to last week's Indian Open title, but the Thai crashed out 6-2 6-2 to the unheralded Venezuelan. Other early first-round winners were big-hitting Uzbek Iroda Tulyaganova and Indonesian Angelique Widjaja.
Tanasugarn, last year's runner-up, was beaten in little more than an hour after a surprisingly undisciplined game, dropping her serve in the very first game. "The scoreline makes it look easy but it was not. There were long rallies in both the sets and we were both tired," said Vento-Kabchi. Tanasugarn blamed the change in pace of courts and tiredness stemming from her recent title run in India for her defeat. "The courts in India were very fast and this court is slow. I couldn't adapt to it. I'm also tired because it was hectic last week," she said. Tulyaganova, losing finalist in last week's Indian Open, narrowly beat Italy's Antonella Serra Zanetti of Italy 6-3 7-6. Widjaja, one of the youngest winners on the circuit in 2002, tamed Silvija Talaja 7-6 6-4. |
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