Date:22/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/22/stories/2008112256981600.htm

Sport - Tennis

Dabija to meet Morita

KOLKATA: Unseeded Elora Dabija of Romania will take on second seed Ayumi Morita of Japan in the final of the $50,000 ITF women’s Challenger tennis championship.

Dabija reached her career’s first final of a Challenger-level event beating Sophie Ferguson of Australia 6-2, 7-6(4) in the semifinals here at the BTA Complex on Friday.

On the other hand, Morita remained one match short of realising back-to-back Challenger titles. The Japanese player blew away giant-killer Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia 6-1, 6-3 in the other semifinal.

By doing this, she reached her second successive final, after having won the title of a similar prize money event at home in Tokyo hardly three weeks ago.

The results (prefix denotes seeding):

Singles: Semifinals: Elora Dabija (Rou) bt Sophie Ferguson (Aus) 6-2, 7-6(4); Ayumi Morita (Jpn) bt Bojana Jovanovski (Srb) 6-1, 6-3.

Doubles: Final: Laura Siegemund (Ger) & Agnes Szatmari (Rou) bt Jing-Jing Lu & Sheng-Nan Sun (Chn) 7-5, 6-3. — Principal Correspondent