Varatchaya a comfortable winner
Mattek-Sands enters the main draw of PTT Pattaya Open
Thailand’s Varatchaya Wongteanchai cruised into the second round of the PTT Pattaya Open following a comfortable 6-3 6-3 victory over German teenager Annika Beck at Dusit Thani Pattaya hotel yesterday.
With her ranking not high enough to get an automatic entry in the tournament, Varatchaya, alongside Luksika Khumkhum, got into the main draw of the US$ 235,000 competition with a wildcard for winning an Asian Championship event last month.
After breaks were swapped in the opening four games, it was the Thai, who acquitted herself better on the show court in front of a decent crowd, making fewer mistakes.
The 23-year-old Varatchaya carried the momentum into the second set and sealed the win on her second match point to move into the second round where she would face either third seed Su Wei Hsieh of Taiwan or New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic.
Yesterday’s action started with the three final qualifying matches, with the world No 180 Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who is yet to win a WTA event since turning professional in 1999, becoming one of the three players to secure a passage into the main draw.
The 27-year-old American, who enjoyed more success in doubles with 11 titles so far, made the move early, breaking Ying-Ying Duan in game three but quickly handed it back when her Chinese opponent produced a couple of winners to draw level at 2-2.
Struggling with her serve, the 23-year-old Chinese found herself behind again moments later and Mattek determined not to waste her second chance powered her way to a 6-2 win in the first set in just little over half an hour.
Although the Chinese, lying 62 places above her opponent in the rankings, slightly improved on her serving at the start of the second set, errors crept into her play, resulting in her dropping her serve for the fourth time in a match that produced a few quality shots.
With her confidence soaring by each game, Mattek faced far less resistance by now and wrapped up her win with ease to book a spot in the main draw where her possible opponent would be decided based on the ranking of the three qualifiers.
In other two qualifying matches, Australia’s Anastasia Rodionova came back from a set down to earn a 4-6 6-3 6-2 win over Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan, while Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova beat Alison Riske of the United States 6-4 5-7 7-6 in a match that lasted more than two and a half hours.
“She’s tough opponent. I never played her before. She hit the ball very hard and has big serve so I just wanted to return well. I think I did that. I played aggressively so I’m happy,” said Mattek in the post-match interview.
Asked whether she still had anything to improve, Mattek replied: “You always have things to improve. I think it’s very hard to pick things, you know, maybe I serve more solidly or maybe mix some more slightly. I think today my strategy was very good but, of course, you can improve every day.”
Earlier in the day, three players including Ana Ivanovic of Serbia and Germany’s Sabine Lisicki, two of the tournament’s poster girls, gave Thai kids from Anti Human Trafficking and Child Abuse Center a treat with ice creams and cakes in an event hosted by PTT.
Neither of the two was in action on the first day of the main draw and both were happy to spend their free time, albeit short one, with the children, posing for some photos and smiling all the time in front of the media. The pair were particularly impressed when the kids thanked them for the dessert they served with a wai.
