INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines--Chinese fifth seed Liu Shaozhou stamped her class over Korean seventh seed Han Sung-hee, 6-1, 6-2, Saturday and captured the PLDT-Smart ITF women?s tennis circuit Week 2 title at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.

It was a redeeming win for the lefty Liu, ranked 481st in the world, who last week bowed out in the quarterfinals to another Korean, eventual champion Lee Ye-ra.

The 19-year-old Liu, a native of Tianjin, was never in danger in the title duel that lasted one hour and 10 minutes as she unleashed winners at will.

Han, 19 and ranked 610th in the world, failed to show the form that lifted her past Week 1 winner Lee in the quarterfinals and Thai Nichai Lertpitaksinchai in the semis.

Shaozhou, who was ranked as high as 35th in the world juniors, claimed top seed Elodie Rogge-Dietrich of France and No. 4 Yoo Mi of Korea among her victims on the way to the title.

In the doubles final late Friday, Koreans Han Na Lae and Yoo Mi crushed former RP No. 1 Czarina Mae Arevalo and German Katharina Lehnert, 6-0, 6-3.

Meanwhile, the qualifying round of the Phinma International Juniors Week I will be held today and tomorrow, with the tournament proper firing off on Nov. 24.