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Fort Lauderdale, Florida • July 3-7, 2002

 

Men's & Women's Semifinal Action

By Larry Hodges

Women

Lau Sui Fei (HKG) d. Lin Ling (HKG), 2,6,7,9

Lau has a great high toss serve, which gave Lin all sorts of problems. Over and over the penhold Lau would serve and loop winners. When Lin served, they often got into backhand-backhand rallies, with Lau's backhand jab block catching Lin's topspinning backhand over and over. Lin looked tired, possibly still not recovered from her 11-9 in the 7th marathon win over Wang Nan the night before. After Lau won the first 11-2, Lin took a 4-0 lead in the second - and promptly lost 18 of the next 21 points. 

Zhang Yining (CHN) d. Niu Jianfeng (CHN), 6,-9,-8,5,10,5

This match was a battle of vicious rallies. The match was turning Niu's way when, with the match tied at 2-2, she led 10-7 game point. But Zhang scored the next nine in a row to win that game, and take a 4-0 lead in the sixth - and just like that, instead of down 3-2, she's won 4-2.

For complete women's results, see the Women's Singles Draw.

Men

Qin Zhijian (CHN) d. Werner Schlager (AUT), 3,-7,7,8,9

This was a match of serve and serve return. Both hid their serves. There were a lot of short returns of serves, and lots of serve & flip kills. But while Schlager seemingly couldn't do anything but pop serves up in the second, and Qin did almost as poorly with Schlager's serve in the second, the rest of the way Qin's returns were better. The left-handed penholder, ranked a now-joking 54th in the world, simply overpowered Schlager on his serve, and out-rallied him on Schlager's serve. Schlager did get his share of serve & attacks, as well as some spectacular backhand loops, but too often he was fighting to come back after popping up a serve or two. Overall, the rallies were very short. Schlager did make a run of it in the fifth game, leading 7-5, but then lost five in a row. The final point, with Schlager one point away from deuce, was brilliant, with Qin moving Schlager all over the court, side-to-side, until Schlager finally missed a running backhand loop.

Ma Lin (CHN) d. Kong Linghui (CHN), -9,5,7,5,7

Until recent years, Kong would have been the favorite here. However, Ma seems to get better and better every year. The match was a battle of Kong's smoothness versus Ma's explosiveness. Neither were using hidden serves (although the rule doesn't go into effect until Sept. 1), with Kong's serves clearly visible. Ma, however, seemed to have already mastered the art of just barely letting the opponent see contact (and the ball throughout the serve motion, with contact just to his side, almost (but not quite) hidden by his body. When people see this type of serve, the "triangle rule" (where nothing at contact could be in the triangle formed by contact and the netposts) might be reconsidered. As it was, Kong still had trouble with Ma's serve, and Ma teed off over and over. 

There was a lot of counterlooping in the match, especially early on. As the match went on, rallies mostly were shorter, as Ma was teeing off more and more, not letting Kong get into the counterlooping rallies he'd used to win game one. After the first game (where, at 9-9, Kong had won two straight points on net balls!), it was all Ma. 

For complete men's results see the Men's Singles Draw. 

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