Kamonwan Reaches Second Season Semi-Final
Third seed Kamonwan Buayam shrugged off a sluggish start to move past Aki Yamasoto of Japan 3-6 6-0 7-5 in one hour and 54 minutes in the quarter-finals of the US$10,000 Thailand ITF Women's Pro Circuit Week 1 at the True Arena Hua Hin yesterday.
Kamonwan, after a being passive and quiet in the opener, grunted her way back to win the match for her second semi-final this year after the first in the February’s US$25,000 ITF in New Delhi.
“When you grunt, it helps liberate your tension and at the same time it intimidates your opponent. If I don’t make noise like in the first set, I feel something is missing. ,” added Kamonwan, No 405 in the world.
“In the first set I let her dictate play while my footwork was a bit slow. She attacked me at both wings. But she started making errors in the second set. I played more aggressive towards the end, added Kamonwan.
Today, she sets a semi-final duel with Chinese hard-hitting Guo Hanyu who survived a three marathon setter against local up-and-coming Plobrung Plipuech 6-4 1-6 7-5 after two hours and 47 minutes of tussles.
“It will be a tough match. She hits the ball hard and beat me the last time we played. However I didn’t expect to come this far at the start of the week as I didn’t have good results earlier.”
In the other quarter-finals, 18-year-old Karman Kaur Thandi of India beat Li Yixuan of China 6-3 6-0 to set up a clash with seventh seed Kang Jia-Qi of China who halted the run of 16-year-old qualifier Cho I-Hsuan of Taiwan 3-6 6-2 6-2.
In the doubles semi-finals, Kamonwan and Lee Pei-Chi of Taiwan, the top seed, beat Akari Inoue and Aki Yamasoto of Japan 4-6 7-6(10-8) 10-8. Fourth seed Nudnida Luangnam and Varunya Wongteanchai lost to Cho I-Hsuan of Taiwan and Zhang Yukun of China 6-1 6-3.
