Yelsey falls in Open debut

Two months removed from Corona del Mar High and less than one month

before she starts classes at Stanford University, Anne Yelsey and her

doubles partner, Riza Zalameda of Los Angeles, put up quite a fight

against the No. 8 seed in the first round of women’s doubles

Wednesday at the U.S. Open at the U.S. National Tennis Center in New

York.

Yelsey, playing in her first U.S. Open, and Zalameda lost to

Liezel Huber of Russia and Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria, 6-4, 6-2,

to drop out of the main draw competition. Yelsey and Zalameda are

still expected to compete in the junior portion of the event, which

takes place during the second week of the grand slam tournament.

While Yelsey remains an amateur, another former standout from

Corona del Mar High, Taylor Dent, continued his professional career

this week at the Open, winning his first-round singles match earlier

in the week, but losing in the first round of men’s doubles

Wednesday.

Dent advanced in the singles competition with a 7-6 (7-1), 6-3,

3-6, 6-4 victory over Sweden’s Robin Soderling. Despite 40 unforced

errors, Dent prevailed by way of 64 winners, compared to 40 for

Soderling.

In the second round, Dent will match up against Nikolay Davydenko

of Russia. He needs two more victories to advance to a fourth-round

matchup against Andre Agassi.

In the first round of men’s doubles, Dent and partner Jeff

Morrison fell, 6-4, 6-4, to Karol Kucera of Slovakia and Bohdan

Ulihrach of the Czech Republic. Dent and Morrison converted just 53%

of their first serves in the match.

Yelsey and Zalameda kept things competitive in the first set of

their match, which took 39 minutes. But the duo couldn’t keep up with

the No. 8 team in the 32-minute second set.

Yelsey and Zalameda qualified for the U.S. Open as a wild card by

winning the girls 18s Super National hardcourt championships in San

Jose this month.