Sybase Friday Matchups

16 second-round matches get underway at 10:30 this morning.  The most competitive ones appear to be these:

#15 Catriona Matthew vs. #18 Kristy McPherson

#14 Morgan Pressel vs. #19 Sophie Gustafson

#13 Inbee Park vs. #20 Maria Hjorth

#30 Amy Yang vs. #35 Juli Inkster

#54 Azahara Munoz vs. #62 Beatriz Recari

On the first three, I'll stick with my initial predictions and expect Matthew, Pressel and Hjorth to move on.  Yang/Inkster is a toss-up - both had to go extra holes on Thursday, albeit against opponents of very different quality.  On a hunch, I'll pick Yang and I like Munoz to edge Recari.

These matches could be tight, too:

#5 Cristie Kerr vs. #28 Sun Young Yoo

#8 Michelle Wie vs. #25 Hee Young Park

#12 Song-Hee Kim vs. #21 Momoko Ueda

#46 Sandra Gal vs. #61 Haeji Kang

#7 Karrie Webb vs. #55 Amanda Blumenherst

#24 Eun-Hee Ji vs. #57 Karine Icher

The underdogs in the first two matches often play hot-or-cold.  If either shows up hot again today, the higher seed is in trouble although I still favor them.  I like Ueda to upset Kim, Gal to beat Kang and Icher to outlast Ji.  As I predicted in my bracket, I like Blumenherst to upset Webb.

In these five matches, I expect the higher seed to prevail.

#27 Jee Young Lee vs. #48 Shi Hyun Ahn

#2 Ai Miyazato vs. #31 M.J. Hur

#10 Angela Stanford vs. #41 Pat Hurst

#4 Yani Tseng vs. #29 Candie Kung

#1 Jiyai Shin vs. #32 Hee-Won Han

We'll see if I can do better than yesterday's .655 (21-11) percentage.