Ratiwatana twins emerge champs in Shanghai
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Sonchat and Sanchai Ratiwatana lifted their fourth Challenger title of the season when they beat Hsin-Han Lee and Hsien-Yin Peng 6-3 6-4 in the final of the US$50,000 Shanghai Challenger final yesterday.
A week after a disappointing loss at home, where they went down to Chen Ti and Huang Liang Chi in the Bangkok Open quarter-finals, the top seed put up a solid performance to make a hat-trick of wins in this tournament.
“It depends on who plays better on that day. We all know one another very well in these challengers. Today was just our day as we played quite well,” said Sanchai who along with his twin brother have collected three other trophies at Eskisehir (Turkey), Nottingham (England) and Cherbourg (France).
Both will fly back to Thailand with US$31,000 prize money and 80 more points on the WTAP rankings. The siblings have grabbed a total of 45 titles, two on the ATP Tour, 33 challengers and 10 Futures. They will take a break for a week before playing a challenger event in Taiwan the following week.
Mirnyi, Hlavackova win
Max Mirnyi of Belarus won his third US Open mixed doubles crown yesterday, joining Czech Andrea Hlavackova to beat Mexican Santiago Gonzalez and American Abigail Spears 7-6 (7/5) 6-3 in the final.
The seventh-seeded European duo needed only 86 minutes to capture the crown over the unseeded North Americans for the $150,000 top prize at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Mirnyi won his first US Open mixed doubles crown alongside current women’s singles world No 1 Serena Williams in 1998 and took his second in 2007 alongside compatriot Victoria Azarenka, now the world No 2. Williams beat Azarenka in last year’s US Open women’s singles final.
“New York is the best city to play tennis, this is the best stadium to play tennis and I always get the best partners,” said Mirnyi, who was also a mixed doubles runner-up in 2000 alongside Russian Anna Kournikova.
Hlavackova, who remains in the women’s doubles event with compatriot Lucie Hradecka, gave Mirnyi the lion’s share of credit for the victory.
“He was unbelievable,” she said. “He covered 80 per cent of the court. It was easy for me to make some magical returns.”
