Sybase - 2nd Round

It was mostly status quo on Friday as the field was whittled down to sixteen at the Sybase Match Play Championship.  Only one Top 10 seed fell - In-Kyung Kim was two down to Brittany Lang at the turn and could not come back as Lang continued to surprise with a 2&1 victory.  There were only two other upsets among the sixteen matches.  Defending champion Sun Young Yoo lost to #50 Alena Sharp 2&1 and #62 Julieta Granada won five of the last six holes to beat #40 Seon Hwa Lee.

The day's feature match was between Paula Creamer and Karrie Webb.  Creamer took a 2-up lead through four holes but bogeyed 5 to drop one.  Webb birdied 10 to square the match, both players birdied 11 and then both parred the next six.  At 18 Paula played her approach to five feet and canned the winning birdie.  The only other match between players in the top 32 was another nail-biter.  Michelle Wie went 2-down to Anna Nordqvist when she double-bogeyed 9 but came back to tie with birdies at 14 and 15.  The match went extra holes and Wie prevailed when Nordqvist bogeyed the par-5 2^nd hole.

Many of the other matches were not only won by the favorite, they were rather one-sided.  Cristie Kerr rolled over Belen Mozo 7&6, Angela Stanford and Meena Lee dispatched Wendy Ward and Mi Hyun Kim respectively 5&4 while Suzann Pettersen sent Amy Hung packing 5&3.  Ai Miyazato and Yani Tseng cruised home as well, both winning 3&2 over Hee-Won Han and Jenny Suh.  One heavy favorite who did not cruise was #1 seed Na Yeon Choi, who required 20 holes to get by Karen Stupples.  Choi never trailed but she never led by more than one, either.

Yoo's loss was the day's only one which damaged my bracket any more than it already was.  Of course several of Thursday's losses carried over into Friday's results so it still wasn't a great day.  I had nine winners among the sixteen matches, making my record so far 25-23 with 34 points in the Golfweek bracket challenge.  If Tseng, Wie and Stanford stay alive today and make Sunday's Final Four, my bracket might have a chance.  Today's third round matches begin about 9am EDT and the quarterfinals will follow, probably beginning around 2pm.  Here are the pairings:

Ai Miyazato (6) vs. Inbee Park (11)

Cristie Kerr (3) vs. Kyeong Bae (47)

Angela Stanford (18) vs. Meena Lee (33)

Paula Creamer (10) vs. Brittany Lang (35)

Na Yeon Choi (1) vs. Alena Sharp (50)

Suzann Pettersen (5) vs. Stacy Lewis (21)

Michelle Wie (9) vs. Sophie Gustafson (42)

Yani Tseng (4) vs. Julieta Granada (62)

Miyazato-Park looks like a great match but the best one may be Pettersen-Lewis.  I picked Inbee in the first one and Stacy in the second.  Not quite as sure about them now as I was Wednesday morning, but we'll see in a few hours.  It's pretty amazing that given Thursday's results, each of these matches features at least one player seeded in the Top 20.