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Nirupama in last round of US Open qualifiers

Nirupama Vaidyanathan, India's top woman player, came up with yet another upset when she beat Katalin Marosi of Hungry 6-1, 6-1 to enter the final round of the US Open qualifiers.

Nirupama took just 42 minutes to down the higher-ranked Hungarian. She will meet 28th seed Jelena Kostanic of Croatia in the final tomorrow. Jelena Kostanic defeated Angelika Bachmann of Germany 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

Nirupama was all over Marosi from the start of the match and converted all the break chances, except for the 2nd game of second set when Marosi managed to hold serve after being down 0-40. Otherwise it was a clean sweep, with breaks in games 1, 5 and 7 in the first set and 4 and 6 in the second. Marosi rarely got more than a point off Nirupama's serve in most games.

The win got Nirupama 18 points and took her tally from 93 to 111. Her ranking too is up 20 spots, from the existing 219.

Meanwhile, Mahesh Bhupathi and Wayne Ferreira entered the semifinal of the $325,000 Hamlet Cup at Commack, Long Island.

They defeated Djordjevic/GreenHalgh 6-2, 6-4 in the quarterfinal match yesterday.

Their semifinal apponents will be decided in the other quarterfinal match to be played between Gambill/Humphries and Del Rio/Puerta. Earlier Gambill/Humphries upset the 4th seeds Martin Damm/Daniel Vacek 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the first round.