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 Patrick power Rafter reaches Heineken semifinals
Posted: Friday June 18, 1999 05:50 PM
DEN BOSCH, Netherlands (AP) -- Wimbledon No. 2 seed Patrick Rafter became the favorite to win the Heineken Trophy grass-court tournament after his main rival Richard Krajicek lost Friday. The top-seeded Krajicek was beaten in the quarterfinals by Germany's Tommy Haas 7-6 (7-3), 1-6, 6-4, while Rafter defeated unseeded Dane Kenneth Carlsen 6-3, 6-4. Saturday's other men's semifinal will pit Romanian Andrei Pavel, who downed Sweden's Nicklas Kulti 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), against fourth-seeded Czech Karol Kucera, who topped another Swede, Jonas Bjorkman, 6-2, 6-3. In contrast to the men's division, the women's competition already had lost all its seeded players before the semifinals. American Kristina Brandi, ranked 57th in the world, surprisingly reached Saturday's final by defeating Bulgarian Magdalena Maleeva 6-7 (7-4), 6-3, 6-3. Brandi will meet Croatian Silvija Talaja, who beat Miriam Oremans of the Netherlands 6-3, 6-2 in the other semifinal. Rafter, playing forcefully, needed only a single break in each set to avenge his 1996 U.S. Open defeat to Carlsen in their only previous meeting. Krajicek, seeded fifth at Wimbledon, paid for an error-strewn first set tie-breaker and a single service loss in the third game of the final set. Haas, seeded No. 14 at Wimbledon, played the better touch tennis of the two and won easily after saving two break points in game eight of the final set.
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