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Nirupama shocks 14th seed Gabrin

Shailesh Soni

India's leading women's player Nirupama Vaidyanathan came up big in two tie-breakers to upset 14th seed Tathiana Garbin of Italy 7-6(7-2), 7-6(7-1) in the first round of the US Open qualifiers yesterday.

Nirupama got early breaks in both the sets. Tathiana was broken in the fifth game of the first set but came back strongly to break back in the eighth game and take set into the tie-breaker. But it was Nirupama all the way in the tie-breaker. She won the last five points to take the set.

In the second set, Nirupama got the vital break right away in the second game, but couldn't hold the advantage for long and was broken back in the fifth game.

The Indian was then in serious trouble after being broken again in the ninth game, but she kept her cool and broke Tathiana right back in the tenth game while the Italian was serving for the set. She then held serve to force another tiebreaker, which she won easily after winning the first five points.

Nirupama faces Katalin Marosi of Hungry in the second round on Thursday. Marosi beat Laurence Andretto of France, after the latter retired at 3-6, 7-6(7-0), 3-0.

Nirupama has played Marosi once, at the Getxo challenger in Spain last year, and beat her in a comeback three-setter.

Marosi was the highest ranked player in Nirupama's bracket of eight players. Others to win in the bracket are 28th seed Jelena Kostanic and Angelika Bachmann.

Nirupama picks up nine points (including 3 bonus) for this victory, which is enough to move her ranking up by 15 spots already.

In the men's section, Leander Paes will face Michael Hill in his first round match today. Hill, at 25 and 6' 2", has generally been a Challenger journey-man for a while. His highest ranking was at around 160, but he has been generally around 200 for sometime. He won the Aptos and California Challenger this year, which helped him in keeping his ranking up.