Thai Twins Beat Young Guns to Reach Bangkok Challenger Semi-finals

The twins are the only Thai hopes remaining in the tournament as no other locals could survive the first round actions both in the singles and doubles events.

In the other doubles action, the Japanese-Chinese duo of Yuichi Sugita and Di Wu of China upset top seeds Jonathan Marray of Great Britian and Adil Shamasdin of Switzerland 2-6 6-3 10-5.

Maximilian Marterer

Earlier in the day,  German rising star  Maximilian Marterer of Germany shrugged off his rusty form in the first set to beat the inspired qualifier Lloyd Glasspool of England 6-7 (6-8) 6-4 6-3 in the singles second round.

The left-hander from Nuremberg struggled to keep the ball in play especially from the backhand side during the first set where he squandered a set point. After trading a few breaks in the second set, the 176 th ranked Marterer arrived at his second set point by pounding a brilliant a forehand inside out winner. Glasspool finally gave in the set after burying an easy a backhand slice into net.

Playing five matches in a row since the qualification seemingly took its toll on the Briton. Glasspool started making errors including a costly double fault that saw him drop serves at 3-5. The 21-year-old German then held his game easily to win in two hours.

Marterer, who won two Challenger events on clay last year, will line up a quarter-final showdown with third seed Marius Copil of Romania who took just 68 minutes to outclass Czech youngster  Zdenek Kolar of the Czech Republic 6-4 6-1.

Yannick Merterns

In the other second round actions, Yannick Mertens of Belgium upset fourth seed Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland 6-2  6-3 for his first quarter-final in a Challenger since losing the semi-finals in Istanbul 2015.

“I won important points and hard fought games. I was very consistent for the entire match. I’m very happy and confident with my start of the season,” said the 29-year-old world No 251 who is on a comeback trail after sustaining a foot injury at the end of last year.

“I had an injury between October and November last year. When I came back to play in December, I won a Futures tournament (in Israel. So I ended last year and started this year on a high note,” said  the winner of 22 Futures title who will face Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia. a 6-2 6-3 winner over Cedrik-Marcel Stebe of Germany, on Friday.