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As the top two seeds at this week's HSBC Women's Match Play Championship, U.S. Open winner Annika Sorenstam and wunderkind Michelle Wie would have to wait until Sunday's final for a dream pairing at Hamilton Farm Golf Club in Gladstone, N.J.
In match play, it rarely happens, as upsets are common. In last year's inaugural event, 60th-seeded Marissa Baena and 47th-seeded Meena Lee worked their way to the championship match.
"I don't really look at the name of the player I'm playing," Wie said after her practice round Tuesday. "You can't really control what your opponent does. All I can do is prepare myself for Thursday and play my hardest and see what happens."
If Wie gets past her opening match against 63rd-seeded Candy Hanneman, she could be in for trouble right away. The gritty Christina Kim, who went 2-1-1 to spur the U.S. to its Solheim Cup victory last fall, is the 34th seed and would advance to meet Wie by beating Joo Mi Kim.
Wie did not play the HSBC last year but is quite familiar with the format. The only notable victory of her career came in match play at the 2003 U.S. Women's Public Links Championship. She also advanced to the quarterfinals of last year's men's Publinks, where she won three matches before losing to eventual champ Clay Ogden, 5 and 4.
Wie continued to assert she feels "really close" to her first LPGA win.
"I know there are people out there critiquing me, saying I haven't won or `blah, blah, blah,' but I don't really care about that kind of stuff," she said. "I'm just here to play as well as I can and if I'm going to win, then I'm going to win."
Sorenstam took Tuesday off after her Monday playoff victory over Pat Hurst at Newport. Wie rushed to New Jersey after finishing tied for third over the weekend and got a practice round in ahead of Tuesday morning's thunderstorms.
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(c) 2006, New York Daily News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
