Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, winner again on the European clay

Still, as was mentioned earlier, things are on the upswing for Arantxa. A couple of matches under her belt now will help her tackle some greater challenges in the ensuing weeks. What might otherwise have been forecasted as a very lean year for Arantxa may very well turn into something remarkable - only time will tell. In the mean time, Arantxa has moved up one ranking position to #6, while Irina has moved up 3 to #17.

In Tokyo, Japanese #1 and tournament top seed Ai Sugiyama was looking to make it a hat trick of titles at the Japan Open earlier in the fortnight. Another player who has struggled for form recently after a leg injury she sustained two months ago, the two-time defending champion needed one more title to equal the record set by country woman Kimiko Date for the most number of Japan Open titles won at 3. What could have been a dream win for the affable Sugiyama turned into a set back as the 2nd seeded American Amy Frazier capped off a spectacular week by defeating Ai Sugiyama in the final 6-2 6-2.

In Budapest, 7th seeded Sarah Pitkowski managed to claw through the draw, despite a huge number of early round upsets of seeds, and claim her first WTA tour title. Pitkowski was surprisingly the only seed left in the quarter finals and made the most of a weakened field to take her first tournament victory, coming at the expense of #112 Cristina Torrens-Valero, also seeking her first WTA title. What was even more surprising was that none of the top 4 seeds had advanced to the second round (rather unusual in the WTA tour). Last year's finalists, 3rd seed Silvia Farina and 4th seed Virginia Ruano-Pascual, made surprising exits on their favourite surface, and likewise for 2nd seed Henrieta Nagyova who has had some remarkable success this year already. But the big upset came at the expense of top seed Jana Novotna who was stunned 6-4 6-3 by #111 ranked Ludmilla Cervanova. Now we know that clay is not Jana's favoured surface, but it is one on which she can still play a very effective game. In the early weeks of the claycourt season however, we might expect a few upsets to occur as the players try to make adjustments in their games to comply with the slow pace of the courts. Such was evident

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