AMANDA COETZER

30 years old Amanda J Coetzer is one of the veterans at the womens circult, but she is still not only the no1 of her country, South-Afrika. Ranked no 27 in the world means also that she is the no1 of the whole continent Africa and so we will have a perfect face off at the Quarterfinal of the Brasilan Open: Europes no1 vs the African no1!

Amandas career started quite early, in fact, i guess she was the youngest professional of all times, but i let her explain that in her own words:

"Its a sad story", says Amanda. "My two older sisters are only one year apart, and I was three and four years younger. I was always the little one, dragging behind, wanting to play them, whatever it was. So my Dad built a little black box behind our court so I could hit against the back side of the wall while they played. My sisters were pretty good, and I was too small, so it was the wall, hour after hour." Eventually she moved onto the ball machine. Her father Nico, a Hoopstad lawyer, would offer her financial rewards for nailing targets. "Thats how my professional career started" she says. "I think my father stopped that whole system of paying me for hitting targets, because I would hit on the ball machine for an hour and a half before he would come our. I made quite a bit of money from him"

A few years later Amanda earned the big money, making three semifinals of Grand Slam Tournaments (Aus-Open twice and Roland Garros once), and winning 8 tournaments. The best known of them would probably be Hilton Head which she has won in 1998 and the last one was at Acapulco last year.

Jelena has beaten Amanda twice, at the Olympic Games in 2000 6-1, 1-6 and 6-1 and 2001 at Key Biscane 6-3 and 7-5. Amanda took revenge at Amelia Island where she managed to beat Jelena 6-4, 2-6 and 6-3.

The results of Amanda in 2002 are nowhere near her expectations. Until wimbledon this year was a complete desaster for the girl from Hoopstad, but after that she had a few results to show. So she reached round 3 of three straight tournaments always beating well known players at round 2. At L.A. she beat Smashnova to loose to Sugiyama, at Montreal she beat Dementieva to loose to Hantuchova and at the U.S. Open she beat Smashnova again, and lost very unluckyly to Hingis.

And at the Brasilian Open? She beat Natalie Dechy in round two 6-3, 3-6 and 6-3 and faces Jelena Dokic..... I guess the series of the quarterfinalist of 2001 will continue :-)