Sun, Oct 26, 2008 page20

• Dentoni dumps out Chan

  DISAPPOINTMENT Taiwanese No. 1 Chan Yung-jan, who had dropped only five games all week, lost her semi-final to the unseeded Italian Corinna Dentoni at the Taipei Arena

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  By Tony Phillips STAFF REPORTER

  Italy’s Corinna Dentoni ended Chan Yung-jan’s hopes of reaching the singles final at the OEC Taipei Ladies’ Open yesterday, beating the Taiwanese No. 1 6-4, 6-1.

  It was a disappointing end to a week that had seen Chan drop only five games in her three previous matches.

  

  Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan tries to motivate herself during her Taipei Ladies’ Open semi-final against Corinna Dentoni at the Taipei Arena yesterday.

  PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  For the unseeded Italian, ranked nearly a hundred places lower than the top seed, the win showed that her defeat of one-time world No. 4 Kimiko Date-Krumm in the previous round was no fluke.

  Chan began the semi-final clash at the Taipei Arena well, breaking Dentoni in the opening game. The Italian broke back in the fourth game to level at 2-2, before the Taiwanese missed a chance to go 5-3 up when she sent a lob long on break point in the seventh game.

  It proved costly, as Chan failed to hold her serve in the 10th game to put the Italian a set up.

  Although the contest had been fairly even until that point, Chan seemed to lose confidence in the second set.

  She failed to capitalize on a strong position early on, failing to break Dentoni in the first game despite leading 0-40 and wasting another break point in the third game.

  Chan sent a backhand into the net to hand Dentoni the next game and was broken again in the sixth game, leaving Dentoni to serve for the match.

  Although the demonstrative Italian screamed in frustration after putting the ball into the net on her first match point, Chan wasted yet another break point opportunity before Dentoni hit a forehand winner to take the set and the match.

  The 19-year-old faces sixth seed Jarmila Gajdosova in today’s final.

  The Slovakian looked impressive in her 6-2, 6-2 demolition of Japan’s Kumiko Iijima in yesterday’s other singles semi-final, proving altogether too powerful for the world No. 225.

  In the doubles, No. 1 seeds Hsieh Su-wei and Chuang Chia-jung won an all-Taiwanese clash against third seeds Chan Chin-wei and Chang Kai-chen 6-2, 6-4.

  It looked like Hsieh and Chuang would run away with the match when their opponents failed to hold serve three times in the first set, putting the favorites 5-0 up.

  Chuang was broken in the next game after serving up two double faults, but it only postponed the inevitable as Hsieh held her serve in the eighth game to take the set.

  The second set was closer, as both pairs failed to hold serve until Hsieh obliged in the fourth game to put the No. 1 seeds 3-1 up. She blotted her copybook in the eighth game, however,dropping her serve after putting a backhand into the net to make it 4-4.

  Hsieh and Chuang broke back immediately, before Chuang served out the match to earn a straight sets win.

  Today’s doubles final will be another all-Taiwanese affair after Hsu Wen-hsin and Hwang I-hsuan beat Dentoni and Chen Yi 7-6 (5) 7-5 in a close-fought match yesterday evening.

  Also See: Federer eases past Italy’s Bolelli
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