THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 22, 1994 TAG: 9407220688
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL WHITE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
It took her more than three hours to pull it off, but when the best match of the USTA Girls 16s Clay Court National Championships was over, Ivy Wang remained the tournament's hottest player.
The seventh-seeded Wang, who beat her first three opponents without losing a game, toppled top-seeded Jody Anglin of the Bronx, N.Y., 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, in quarterfinal action at the Virginia Beach Tennis & Country Club.
The victory gave Wang revenge for a 6-3, 6-3 defeat to Anglin in last year's clay court nationals. More importantly, it moved the Haverford, Pa., native into today's 9 a.m. semifinals, where she will meet sixth-seeded Julie Ditty of Ashland, Kent.
Ditty survived a marathon of her own in besting third-seeded Lauren Rose of Toledo, Ohio, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6. The match featured effective in-court and net play from both players, tactics atypical of the vast majority of this tournament's field.
In today's other semifinal match, eighth-seeded Holly Parkinson of Cherry Hill, N.J. will take on No. 10 Kristy Dascoli of Bradenton, Fla.
Parkinson outdueled heavy hitting 16th seed Janet Walker of Seffner, Fla., 3-6, 6-1, 6-4. Dascoli ousted 12th-seeded Jennifer Heiser of Stockton, Calif., 6-4, 6-3.
Wang appeared as though she'd be the easiest of quarterfinal winners after one set Thursday, a series of games during which she cracked several winners while Anglin made uncharacteristic unforced errors.
Wang then broke Anglin to start the second set, then went up 40-15 on her own serve. But from that point, Anglin ridded her game of loose mistakes and pinned Wang to the baseline with heavy topspin strokes.
``I was getting really frustrated by those high balls,'' Wang said. ``She had me playing her game instead of my own.''
The six games Anglin won in the second set were as many as Wang had allowed in her four previous matches combined.
Anglin continued to force long rallies in the third set, but Wang's more penetrating shots kept the top seed on the defensive. Wang won match point with a tactic which served her well throughout the set - moving Anglin wider and wider off the court with a series of forehands, then smacking a backhand into an open court for an outright winner. by CNB