Seeds Restore Order at Bad Gastein, Wickmayer and Pervak Reach Semis

By Chris Oddo

Photo Credit: GEPA Pictures

(June 7, 2012) -- Things were looking pretty chaotic at the Nurnberger Gastein Ladies earlier in the week. Top seed Julia Goerges was upset in the first round by a qualifier, and an unknown American qualifier by the name of Chichi Scholl was schooling the competition en route to her first career quarterfinal.

Today, thanks to solid efforts from second-seeded Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium and Ksenia Pervak of Kazakhstan, things went mostly as planned.

World No. 37 Wickmayer reached the semis by taking out the hometown favorite Yvonne Meusburger of Austria 6-3, 6-2. The rankings difference between the pair was more than 100 spots, but Meusberger was certainly a threat, having been a former finalist at Bad Gastein and having never failed to reach the quarters at the clay-court event.

Wickmayer broke the Austrian five times and did not face a break point in the final set as she breezed to an easy victory.

The Belgian will face Mandy Minella of Luxembourg in the semifinals. Minella came back from a set down to take out eighth-seeded Johanna Larsson of Sweden, 1-6, 6-2, 6-2.

Third-seeded Pervak took out the surprise American quarterfinalist Chichi Scholl 6-4, 6-1. The world No. 41 played a dominant second set to finish off Scholl in one hour and twenty-four minutes. Still, the week was a good one for the 19-year-old American, as she won the first two tour-level matches of her career.

Pervak will face Frenchwoman Alize Cornet in the semis. World No. 66 Cornet dominated the Spaniard Estrella Cabeza Candella 6-1, 6-2 to advance.

Rain Washes out Most Play at Birmingham

Heavy rains forced all four quarterfinal matches to be held over until Saturday at the AEGON Classic in Birmingham, England.

Zheng Jie led Roberta Vinci 6-3, 5-6, 15-all in the one quarterfinal match that saw action before play was finally called for the day.

In the only completed singles match, Misaki Doi of Japan defeated Stephanie Foretz Gacon of France 6-4, 7-5 in a held-over third-round match to earn a quarterfinal bid alongside Jelena Jankovic.