Ratiwatanas set up daunting clash

“Amazing Twins” Sonchat and Sanchai Ratiwatana kept the Thai flag flying at Impact Arena yesterday, using superior teamwork to overcome Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Australia’s Marinko Matosevic 6-4 6-3 in the US$608,000 Thailand Open doubles first round.

The siblings, who made history by becoming the first locals to win the title here in 2007, needed just 59 minutes to power past first-time pairing Garcia-Lopez and Matosevic. This is only the second time the world No 70 have made it through the first round.

“We have never won a first-round match here, except in 2007, so victory today is very satisfying. The other team are more used to playing singles, while we have been playing doubles for a long time which gave us the edge,’’ said elder sibling Sonchat.

“We were lucky to win crucial points and miss very few shots. We are playing pretty consistently this year and have a lot of confidence. But we want to focus on one match at a time,’’ said younger brother Sanchai.

With the match on-serve at four-games all, the Thai twins broke the deadlock when Sonchat fired a sharp forehand passing shot to break for 5-4. They comfortably held serve to clinch the opener, but lost focus as the second set got underway. The Thai duo played two loose games, allowing their opponents to go 2-0 up.

However, the better-matched brothers, who have won eight Challenger titles this season, fought back to reel off four games in a row against the Spanish-Australian debutants. After squandering the first match point at 5-3 and 15-40, Sanchai punished a weak second serve from the Australian with a superb backhand down-the-line winner to close out the match.

The Thai duo now faces a quarter-final against the winners from the match between France’s Gael Monfils and Gilles Simon and Spaniards David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco.

“Either opponent will be tough. But we expect to play the Spanish team, because Marrero is a good doubles player. We have lost to him in the past,” said Sanchai.

The twins’ victory cheered up a scattering of fans on a quiet day one of the tournament after Thai No 2 Kittipong Wachiramanowong was beaten 6-2 6-2 by fourth-seeded Hiroki Moriya of Japan in the final qualifying round.

“He has improved a lot compared to the last time I played him three years ago. I gave my all but he was playing very well and consistently. But this is better than I expected. I thought I wouldn’t get past the first qualifying round,” said the 22-year-old Kittipong.

I the only singles main-draw match scheduled yesterday, wild card Peerakiat Siriluethaiwattana of Thailand was to play Philipp Petzschner of Germany at press time.

In other final-round qualifying action, top seed and world No 35 Kevin Anderson of South Africa cruised past Evgeny Korolev of Kazakhstan 6-1 6-2 , second seed Yuichi Sugita toppled seventh-seeded Yasutaka Uchiyama 6-2 6-4 in an all-Japanese affair, and former world junior No 1 Tsung-hua Yang of Taiwan upset German third seed Mischa Zverev 4-6 6-0 7-5.

Yesterday also saw 20 children from Ban Metta Home visit the tournament at the invitation of FedEx. The orphans watched the players train at Thunder Dome before having their photos taken with the pros, who also signed autographs.