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Mixed fortunes for SA

Johannesburg - Raconteur, former South African Davis Cup star and more recently turned-author Abe Segal once expressed the view about one of his tennis acquaintances that "he is the only player I know who regularly sends his opponents to a psychiatric ward."

Segal would surely have amended this assessment to include wily Fabrice Santoro had he seen the top-seeded Frenchman drive South Africa's Raven Klaasen to extreme levels of frustration during a 6-4 6-2 victory in the second round of the Soweto Open at the Arthur Ashe Tennis Complex on Thursday.

Santoro's unorthodox, double-handed strokes from both wings, subtle changes of pace and rare on-court intuition and initiative all combined to break Klaasen's serve on five out of nine occasions and guide the French "Magician" into the quarter-finals without undue trouble after he broke serve in the opening game of the match.

Fortunately for South Africa's prospects in this R1-million, historic ATP Challenger event in Soweto, Rik De Voest played with a degree more composure and consistency while beating Spain's Carlos Poch-Gradin 7-6 6-3 to become the second local player into the quarter-finals after Fritz Wolmarans.

And the outcome of Thursday's absorbing programme is that Santoro plays France's Nicolas Mahut and De Voest faces Karol Beck, who was in South Africa with the Slovakian Davis Cup team a number of years ago, in what looms as a couple of intriguing quarter-finals on Friday.

"I never like to come up against opponents whom I have never played before," said the astute Santoro afterwards, "and I was in a little trouble when he broke back to make the score 2-2 in the first set. But once I had sorted out his style, I felt quite at ease."

He demonstrated his uncanny dexterity for a 36 year-old on one point in the latter stages of the game when he checked his stroke after a Klaasen shot seemed to clear the baseline by six inches.

But off-balance when no call of "out" was forthcoming from the linesman or umpire, Santoro still managed to recover and stroke an outrageous cross-court backhand winner when other players might have vented their anger and not attempted a stroke.

Although maintaining an assertion that he will retire from tennis at the end of the year after a distinguished 21-year career, Santoro said he had taken great joy from improving his serve noticeably Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 during the past year or two.

And he was smiling too about the memorable success of his favourite soccer team, Chelsea, in the memorable Champions League encounter against Liverpool this week, explaining that he had lived in the Chelsea area in London for some time in the past and identified himself with the team.

De Voest, who is close to regaining his position as South Africa's top player, says he might need to win the Soweto tournament to achieve this goal because of a revamped ATP points structure.

"But I'm certainly not worrying about that right now," he added.

He raced into a 4-1 lead against Poch-Gradin and faltered briefly to allow the Spaniard to make the score 4-4. But from this point on it was mainly smooth sailing for the clinical South African, who won the opening set tiebreaker by seven points to two.

On another steaming, cloudless day in Soweto, Beck raced to a 6-0 6-3 win against Lindahl in under an hour and will clearly present the most severe test for De Voest in the tournament up to this point.

Mahut also accounted for Rehnquist in under an hour while winning 6-2 6-2 and his game against Santoro promises to be a highlight of the tournament thus far.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s Rik de Voest was in fine fettle in reaching the last eight in the competition with a 7-6(7-2) 6-3 victory over Spain’s Carlos Poch-Gradin.

De Voest's serve was working well, which allowed him to move with intent to the net for cross-court winners on the volley. Retrieving quite magnificently at times in the searing heat, the Pretoria man's precise passing shots and perfectly weighted lobs eventually took their toll on a game opponent.

Next up for De Voest is Karol Beck of Slovakia in the quarter-finals, the Slovak cruising past Australia's Nick Lindahl 6-0 6-3 in his round of 16 match. "I watched a bit of Beck's match and he played very well," De Voest said. "He'll be a tough nut, a right-hander who hits the ball flatter than Poch-Gradin. We've never played each other, so it will be interesting."

 


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