Monica Seles and Iva Majoli teamed up for a mouthwatering doubles-
partnership at the Toray Pan Pacific Open! Unfortunately they lost to
Elena Bovina and Rennae Stubbs, 3-6 6-1 7-6 (7-3).
It's the doubles-partnership I've been looking forward to for a
decade, having been a fan of Monica since 1992, and of Iva - "the new
Monica Seles" - since 1993 (until 1999, they were the only two
players I supported). I hope their loss won't discourage them from
continuing to play together!
This was the tournament at which Iva beat Monica - then world number
one - in the quarter-finals in 1996. Iva went on to beat future #1
Martina Hingis and former #1 Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario to win the
title! :-)
This was the tournament at which two of my other girls - Jelena Dokic
and Iroda Tulyaganova - played doubles last year. The Pan Pacific
Open holds such sweet memories for me!
MonIva play their opening singles matches tomorrow. Monica, the top
seed, plays Ai Sugiyama in the second round (after a bye). Iva plays
Alexandra Stevenson, the winner to meet Lindsay Davenport in the
second round.
I hope fortunes will be much better for MonIva than at the Australian
Open, and I hope for a final between Monica and either Iva or
Jelena! :-)
The draw is here:
http://www.tennisrulz.com/draws/02tokyo.htm
--
Andrew Broad
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/seles/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/majoli/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ivamajoli/