Cavaday makes mark in Birmingham

 

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:33

The 20-year-old from Kent achieved the best result of her career so far to put out the vastly-experienced Tamarine Tanasugarn, a player 12 years her senior and 250 places higher in the world rankings.

Cavaday’s reward for a 7-6 (7/5) 2-6 6-4 victory over the 12th seed from Thailand, who was a Wimbledon quarter-finalist last year, is a meeting with 19-year-old Stefanie Voegele from Switzerland.

“I played her last year in French Open qualies and lost but this is grass and its my surface so I am just going to go for it,” she said. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Fellow Britons Mel South and Elena Baltacha are still in the tournament after their second-round matches were held over to today because of rain.

Baltacha will open the fourth’s day play against fifth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova from Russia, while South will play the top seed from China, Jie Zheng.

If Baltacha can pull off a shock, she will take on India’s Sania Mirza, who yesterday ended the hopes of British number one Anne Keothavong.

Keothavong twice served for the second set before eventually going down in straight sets but afterwards managed to put on a brave face.

“You can’t guarantee a good performance every day unfortunately and there are plenty of things for me to work on before Eastbourne and Wimbledon,” said the world number 49.

Former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova also has time to make up after her second-round match with American Alexa Glatch was interrupted by rain. Sharapova missed two match points but will resume today leading 6-3 5-4.

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