Quick win for China’s Qin

Yang’s service was broken once — in the first game of the second set — after she double faulted twice. But that was just about as far as the Austrian could get. With a break each in the next game and in the fourth, the Chinese girl was back on course.

At 5-3, 40-0 with Yang serving for the match, there was a brief fight by Adlbrecht as she saved two match points. But a backhand winner from the net gave Yang her $ 1,600 (Rs 57,600) winner’s cheque.

A product of the State-run tennis programme, she will, however, keep only a percentage of the prize money, said coach Gao Bin. The remainder will go to the centre where she trainsalong with other promising juniors. The programme includes picking up school students and grading them according to their potential. Those in the top grade out of the four that exist play tournaments in China and abroad while the rest work to make it to this grade.

Bin, who has been coaching her for the last three years, said Yang is also sponsored entirely by the State. And the Chinese girl, who started playing competitive tennis only from October last year, today took her first step towards justifying that faith by scoring a double here after she won the doubles title on Friday with Jing Jing Chen.

“She played very well, very hard,” said Adlbrecht, also playing her first WTA final. “I didn’t serve too well and didn’t move well either,” said the 20-year-old Austrian who had six double faults in the match.

“But I served better than I did yesterday, but it wasn’t good enough. Everytime I try to play hard, I make mistakes. And she was just too quick,” said Adlbrecht, who collected her biggest chequeof $ 1000 (Rs 36,000).And to think that she almost gave up playing five years ago. She felt she was not mentally strong enough after she repeatedly failed in qualifying tournaments. She went to finishing school to do “housekeeping, tailoring and stuff” and though she continued played in small tournaments, she just waited for her “head to get better”.

She finished school, thought her problems were over and on the insistence of a friend, decided to come here. “It’s not safe for a woman to travel alone, no?” the girl from Carinthia in Austria said. She was plagued by loneliness and lack of sleep here, “its very noisy”, but managed to stay focussed on her job. Her little sister Jeannine — the top ranked under-12 in Austria will not have to go through the same though, she said. “I will accompany her after I am through with playing.”

Adlbrecht, who hates “egoistic” country-mate Thomas Muster and likes Stefan Edberg, Gabriela Sabatini among the old lot and Pat Rafter among the current, goes toUniversity to study English and Italian when she is not practicing with neighbour and former Austrian Davis Cupper Horst Skoff.

Results

Singles final (Country and ranking in brackets): Qin Yang (China, 696) bt Julia Adlbrecht (Aut, 684) 6-0, 6-3.