Notícia

BRAZILIANS AND PUERTO RICAN SHINES IN FEMININE

Por CBTM

Brazil's Livia Mizobuchi, Argentina's Ana Codina plus the Puerto Rican trio of Carelyn Cordero, Lyanne Aponte and Cynthia Gonzales were the players to excel in Viña del Mar on Friday 9th March 2007.

In the group stage matches in the Girls' Singles event at the Chile Junior Open all recorded impressive victories.

The five young ladies shone on a day when only two of the top six seeds in the Girls' Singles event emerged unbeaten. The two who avoided reverses were Brazil's Karin Fukushima, and compatriot, Jessica Yamada.

However, even they had some moments of alarm.

Comfortable
Seeded two, Karin Fukushima enjoyed the more comfortable path.

She beat Chile's Gabriela Penazola in straight games but was extended to four games by Daniela Reinero, also from Chile, the fourth game being determined by the very narrowest of margins.

Difficulties
Meanwhile, number three seed Jessica Yamada required four games to beat Puerto Rico's Gloriany Baba and against Chile's Judith Morales she had real problems.

She lost the first two games before winning the next three to secure victory.

Top Seed Beaten
Close encounters but the two Brazilian teenagers ended the day unbeaten, it was not the case for the other highly seeded players.

Top seed Chile's Natalia Castellano beat colleague Eliane Barrueto in her opening match in three straight games but then on her second visit to the table lost by the same margin to Livia Mizobuchi. The latter having beaten Chile's Constanza Escobar finished the day unbeaten.

Future in the Balance
Defeat for the top seed and also for the fourth seed, Paraguay's Sandy Gavilán who came within a hair's breadth of exiting the tournament, with two players from each group progressing to the second stage her hopes are still alive but only just.

In her opening match she lost in straight games to Carelyn Cordero and in her second contest experienced major problems against Chile's Blanca Duran.

Qualities
A major quality of the Paraguayan is that she fights, she never gives up and those qualities came to the fore against Blanca Duran. She trailed by two games to one before recovering to win a nail-biting fifth game 14-12; had she lost that game, her chances of progressing to the knock-out stage would have evaporated.

A tough test for Sandy Gavilán and a fine performance by Carelyn Cordero who continued her excellent form in her second match of the day to beat Chile's Cristal Meneses to conclude a good evening's work.

Lyanne Aponte
Similarly, Carelyn Cordero's compatriot Lyanne Aponte was in fine form.

She beat Argentina's Brenda Paez in straight games before recording a four games win over number six seed, Chile's Karen Rojas to end the day as the one unbeaten player in the group.

Ana Codina Loses but Recovers
Success for the two teenagers from Puerto Rico and also for their compatriot Cynthia Gonzales; she beat Chile's Paulina Lagos in four games having earlier accounted for Argentina's Ana Codina by the very narrowest of five game margins.

Defeat for the Argentine player but she recovered; in her next match she beat Chile's Paula Avalos, the number five seed who had made a very impressive opening to her schedule of matches by beating compatriot Paulina Lagos in straight games.

Group Stage Concludes
In each of the six groups, each player has one match remaining; two players from each group qualify for the knock-our section where matches become best of seven games as opposed to best of five in the qualification group stage