Dokic and Capriati dumped out.

By Glyn James
October 25 2002

The first and second seeds Jennifer Capriati and Jelena Dokic have both been dumped out of the Generali Ladies, whilst Hantuchova and Henin advance.

Quarter finals day was a day of mixed forunes for the top seeds. Jennifer Capriati has fallen yet again to fellow American Alexandra Stevenson 6-1 6-1 in what was a display of great tennis from Stevenson. Stevenson played dominating tennis and served superbly to maintain Capriati's downward spiral.

Next on was Daniela Hantuchova. The Slovak was faced with the tricky task of defeating Israel's Anna Smashnova. Daniela took the first set 6-1, but (like her match against Schett), she was unable to capitalise on this, and in a tight second set, Smashnova was the one that came out on top. Hantuchova took a 2-0 lead in the final set, but then landed awkwardly on her ankle. After calling her trainer, and taking an injury time-out, Daniela returned to the court apparently not in such a bad state. The remainder of the set was like a see-saw with both players putting together strings of games, but Hantuchova's persistence proved once again to be the killer blow. Hantuchova won 6-1 4-6 6-1 in the end.

That was followed by Justine Henin's clash with Silvia Farina Elia. The first set began with neither player pushing to take the initiative, and both players cancelled each other out. Farina Elia had chances to put the set away, but she failed, and in the tie-break, Henin came out an 8-6 winner to take the first set 7-6. Henin grew from strength to strength from there on in and took a commanding 5-1 lead. After a last gasp attempt from Farine Elia to salvage some pride, Henin wrapped up the match 7-6 6-2.

Finally, all eyes were on Jelena Dokic v Chanda Rubin. After Chanda's previous win over Jelena, she claimed she was simply 'better' than Jelena. Jelena started brightly and dominated the play in the early stages, but Chanda bounced back and took the next four games. Jelena then put a string of three games together herself to take a 5-4 lead, but once again could not carry her momentum through and take the set. Chanda played some sae tennis, and after some unforced errors from Dokic, it was Rubin who took the first set 7-5. The second opened with a couple of breaks, but Jelena's concentration appeared to break down. After taking the next game, she let her focus slip and was missing everything. Rubin was quick to capitalise on this lapse of concentration, and put together a fanstastic string of five games to take the set and match. The final score was 7-5 6-2.

The semi-finals now look like this:

STEVENSON V HANTUCHOVA

HENIN V RUBIN