Local pro tennis tourney continues

Local pro

tennis tourney continues

Quarterfinal play is set for

today in the Goody Products USTA Women's Pro Championships, a $25,000

USTA Pro Circuit event at the Peachtree City Tennis Center.

Semifinals in singles and doubles

are scheduled for Saturday, with the singles final Sunday at 1 p.m. The

doubles final will immediately follow.

While nearly all of the players

are relatively unheard of as far as women's tennis goes, that usually

does not remain so for long. Last year's winner, Maria Sharapova of Russia,

reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon this year and won matches at the

French Open and U.S. Open.

The top seed in this year's

event, Kristina Brandi of Puerto Rico, is ranked xxth in the world, having

made one of the biggest jumps in the rankings in recent months. She is

being profiled in an upcoming issue of Tennis magazine.

Two other players in the tournament,

Amber Liu and Vilmarie Castellvi, are the top two singles players in this

past year's NCAA championships. Liu, of Stanford, won the title as a freshman

and is playing in the Peachtree City tournament as an amateur. Castellvi,

the runnerup, was a senior at the University of Tennessee and is now a

pro.

Two Georgians remain in the

draw: Tanner Cochran of Dublin, and Kristen Schlukebir of Atlanta. They

were both scheduled to play second-round singles matches Thursday, and

they have paired up for doubles, with a quarterfinal match set for today.

Players in this year's tournament

hail from Bulgaria, Romania, South Africa, Japan, Korea, Canada, the United

Kingdom, and Australia, among other places.

Quarterfinal play begins today

at 10 a.m.

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