Home challenge comes to an end
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All the home country's beach spikers crashed out of the Bangsaen Thailand Open powered by PTT at Laem Taen, with ninth seeds Jarunee Sannok and Usa Tenpaksee going down to Japanese Ayumi Kusano and Mutsumi Ozaki in straight sets yesterday.
Top seeds Katrin Holtwick and Ilka Semmler yesterday bid farewell to Bangsaen. The German duo, who are trailing in the fifth place overall in the 2012 Swatch World Tour, lost the first set 21-23 to Japanese Kusano and Ozaki in the morning match. They trailed 6-8 in the second set before the weary Semmler asked the referee to stop the contest because of the scorching heat. Holtwick and Semmler finished joint 17th and got a US$2,800 cash prize.
Only two teams, Brazil’s fifth seeds Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas de Freitas and American seventh seeds Lauren Fendrick/Nicole Branagh, remained unbeaten in the tournament.
Fendrick and Branagh struggled hard to beat Russian third seeds Evgenia Ukolova and Ekaterina Khomyakova 21-15 15-21 17-15 in the fourth round yesterday, while Brazilians Agatha and Seixas pulled off a sensational 21-19 21-18 win over Kazakhstan’s eighth seeds Irina Tsimbalova and Tatyana Mashkova.
They are the first two teams to make the semi-finals. Fendrick and Branagh made much of the impact in the third round earlier when they overpowered second seeds Jennifer Kessy and April Ross 21-19 17-21 15-11 in the all-American battle.
Meanwhile, all the Thai players failed to make their mark.
Against the Japanese 31st seeds in the afternoon encounter in searing heat, Jarunee Sannok and Usa Tenpaksee fought hard in the second set, hoping to make amends for the first-set loss. However, the Japanese performed superbly in foiling the Thais’ counter-attacks and won in straight sets.
Jarunee and Usa were eliminated from the competition, finishing joint 13th to claim $2,450 prize money plus a special $1,800 bonus (Bt127,500 in total).
“I’m very happy to finish 13th, which is much better than what my team achieved last year[17th]. I was more relaxed unlike last year when I focused on the results and came under pressure,” said Jarunee, 31.
“It’s extremely hot here and the scorching heat affected my team’s performance. Though we could not be better than the 13th place Thai players had won last year, I think it’s still alright. Now, we have to prepare for the Asian Beach Volleyball Championships in Haikou, China from November 1 to 4. We expect to finish in the top three there,” the Nakhon Ratchasima native added.
Thailand head coach Petcharaj Putsornsaid: “I’m satisfied with all Thais’ performances in this tournament. All participating teams are very strong and most of them professionally played World Tour events, while our teams hardly had chances to participate in world-class meets. Here, we performed well up to our level, but the results still fell short of our initial expectation.”
Earlier, Jarunee and Usa stunned the Asian Beach Games champions Varapatsorn Radarong and Tanarattha Udomchawee 21-16 21-15 in the 39-minute all-Thai play-off.
The bitter loss earned Varapatsorn and Tanarattha joint 17th place in the top-notch event and the US$1,700 prize money plus US$1,100 special bonus (totalling Bt8,400).
Last year, Varapatsorn partnered veteran Kamoltip Kulna to finish a Thai best-ever of 13th place in the FIVB World Tour.
