Fri Jul 18 16:34:33 2008

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Szavay barely reaches Bad Gastein quarters

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Bad Gastein, Austria (Sports Network) - Top-seeded Hungarian Agnes Szavay highlighted Friday's second-round winners at the $175,000 Gastein Ladies tennis event.

Szavay barely snuck past Austrian wild card Melanie Klaffner 3-6, 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (7-3) at this clay-court tournament. Szavay's quarterfinal opponent on Saturday will be seventh-seeded Czech Iveta Benesova, who held off Russian Galina Voskoboeva 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.

Two other seeds suffered Day-5 upsets, as Ukrainian Mariya Koryttseva took out third-seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5) and Czech qualifier Lucie Hradecka toppled fifth-seeded Swiss Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 6-4.

Fourth-seeded Frenchwoman Pauline Parmentier avoided an upset by outlasting German wild card Anna-Lena Groenefeld 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.

Two other second-round results saw Austrian Yvonne Meusburger edge out Estonian Maret Ani 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 and Czech qualifier Tereza Hladikova sneak past Croat Karolina Sprem 6-3, 1-6, 6-4. Meusburger lost to Italian Francesca Schiavone in last year's Bad Gastein finale.

Saturday's other quarters will pit Parmentier against Meusburger, Hladikova versus Koryttseva and Hradecka against Austrian Patricia Mayr.

The semifinals will also be staged here on Saturday, as rain wreaked havoc on this week's schedule. Only one of eight second-round matches was completed here on Thursday.

The winner of this event will collect $28,000.