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Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Wednesday 's Day Session at Dow Corning Classic



©Colette Lewis 2007--
Midland, MI--

I mentioned last night that Wednesday evening will be a late one, so I thought I'd better a post up while I have the time this afternoon. The feature matches this evening are No. 4 seed Alexsandra Wozniak against Brenda Schultz, followed by Kristina Brandi and Michelle Larcher de Brito. Schultz is a former champion and popular player in Midland while Larcher de Brito is likely to draw a crowd curious to see the youngest player ever to compete here. She turned 14 late last month, which allows her to make her professional tournament debut.

In the day matches, I spent most of my time at Stadium Court, first watching No. 6 seed Abigail Spears' 6-0, 6-3 win over Kelly Liggan of Ireland, and then seeing qualifer Leanne Baker of New Zealand trip up wild card Audra Cohen 6-3, 6-2.



Cohen never looked comfortable against the left-hander from New Zealand, and was down a break early in both sets. In the first, Baker gave one break right back, but that was the only time she lost her serve in the match. Serving effectively and attacking Cohen's defensive backhand slice, Baker also kept her unforced errors to a minimum. Cohen got very few free points when serving, and in the first game of the second set, saw her 40-0 lead melt away when she double faulted on three consecutive points.

I also watched a bit of qualifier Raluca Olaru's loss to Shiho Hisamatsu of Japan. Olaru, from Romania, is still eligible to play in the ITF juniors this year, but she told me after the match that she was going to concentrate on ITF Women's Circuit tournaments instead. She has been training in Romania the past several months, and this is the first of a string of events in the U.S. for her-- St. Paul is her next stop and Memphis after that.

The Midland Daily News does a great job of covering the tournament, so if you are interested in more stories on this week's event, visit their website.

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