Linda Elriani pulled off her second big win over a higher-seeded Grinham sister in as many nights when she followed her exhausting five-game, 80-minute comeback victory Wednesday evening (a match that didn't end until almost midnight) over No. 4 seed Natalie Grinham with an even more impressive 9-1 9-6 1-9 9-3 semifinal win yesterday over top seed and reigning two-time British Open champion Rachael. Elriani, who is undefeated so far in the 11 WISPA tour matches she has played in calendar 2005, will now face second seed and recently crowned World Open champion Vanessa Atkinson, who ended Vicky Botwright's Cinderella run to her first-ever career major-tournament semifinal with a 9-6, 1 and 6 triumph that required her to rally from an 0-6 deficit in the match's third and final game.

Even in her first-round match on Monday, when she dispatched New Zealander Shelley Kitchen with an ease that belied pre-match expectations of a much closer battle, Elriani gave notice that she was set for a big week. Her cross courts in particular off both flanks, both ground strokes and especially lobs, have throughout her trio of matches been exceptionally well- and widely-angled, to an extent that has frustrated all three of her worthy opponents and forced them to either battle the glass side walls while volleying, never a viable prospect, or, frequently, to retreat to the back wall and attempt responses from cramped and difficult positions.

Rachael Grinham is arguably better than any of her WISPA colleagues at extemporizing her way out of this type of predicament, yet even she was unable to cope with Elriani's ball placement, often either coughing up open balls that gave Elriani too many options or sometimes, as on the match's final point, failing to return the ball at all. Complicating matters from the top seed's perspective were the sharpness of Elriani's drop shots and shallow ground strokes, many of which died well up in the court, and the brilliance of her shot selection, which often wrong-footed Grinham and caused her to scurry desperately to make strenuous and defensive retrievals.

The trend of the match was briefly interrupted in the third game, in which Grinham surged quickly ahead and Elriani let the game get away to rest up for the fourth, in which she regained command early on and never relinquished it. Grinham is a ferocious competitor, as witness her remarkable comeback from 0-2, 2-7 in the semis on this past autumn's British Open against Atkinson, and she competed as wholeheartedly a ever in search of her first Tournament Of Champions final-round berth. But on this night she was simply and convincingly out-played by Elriani, whose flawless execution carried right through to the match's final exchange, which ended, as noted, on yet another cross court lob that Grinham was unable to excavate off the back wall.

In the remaining women's semifinal Botwright was unable to quite duplicate the quality that had carried her to wins over Pamela Nimmo and Jenny Duncalf, and Atkinson, her game and competitive ardor honed by a stressful comeback win (from a 2-1 deficit) over Rebecca Macree, was able to assert her superiority pretty much throughout, other than during the first part of the third game, in which she committed a few unforced tins and Botwright played her best squash of the match. But once Atkinson got on the scoreboard in that game, she was able to march inexorably past her opponent and to what should be an excellent and entertaining final with Elriani tonight at Grand Central Station. Both finalists are at or near the top of their formidable games and, unlike their last meeting, a World Open quarter which Elriani had to default due to illness, both should be at full capacity tonight after winning handily in their respective semifinals.

Semis Recap

Linda Elriani d Rachael Grinham, 9-1 9-6 1-9 9-3; Vanessa Atkinson d Vicky
Botwright, 9-6, 1 and 6.