I have great memories: Gasquet

World No 9 Richard Gasquet of France returned to the capital city yesterday to defend his title in the US$567,530 ATP Thailand Open, which gets under way at the Impact Arena Muang Thong Thani today. 

The 27-year-old beat countryman Gilles Simon in the final 12 months ago for one of his nine ATP Tour titles.

“Last year I had some great memories from this tournament. I won here and really want to play again in the stadium. This tournament was perfect last year and I hope this year it will be the same,” said Gasquet, who has one of the best one-handed backhand shots among active players.

“I did it last year so why can’t I believe that I can do it again this year? I have been playing well this year. I will try my best to win this tournament. I know there are great players in the draw. 

"I will try to perform well and see what will happen,” added the reigning champion, whose solid season included two titles in Montpellier and Doha besides a semi-final place in the US Open. As the second seed behind world No 6 Tomas Berdych, whose flight touched down just a few hours later, Gasquet received a first-round bye and will take on either a qualifier or Slovakia’s Lucas Lacko in the second round. If his schedule allows, he’d love to go sightseeing, as his match would start only on Thursday.

“I will try to visit the city. Last year I went on foot and saw a little bit of the centre of Bangkok. It was nice. But I came here to play tennis and want to play well. If I have free time, I like to visit the city area again.” 

Since reaching the semi-final here in 2007, Berdych never returned again until yesterday. As one of the fiercest baseliners on the tour, the Czech reached his career best rank of No 5 last month. “I’m glad to be back after so many years. I have a good memory about this city. I’m a fan of Thai food especially the spicy stuff. If I have the chance I like to try something good,” said the top seed, who will await the winner of match between a qualifier and Roberto Bautista Agut in the second round.

“It’s always the goal to do well, as I’m first seed. It’s quite a [lot of] pressure for me. I will try to go one by one to be in the final,” said Berdych, who is in search of a title since winning in Stockholm last October.

Meanwhile, in the second qualifying round, all three Thais were stopped by their foreign rivals. Thai No 2 Kittipong Wachiramanowong went down to Japanese world No 175 Hiroki Moriya 5-7 6-4 6-3. Punn Bodhidatta’s wish to emulate the women’s volleyball team, which beat Japan for the Asian Championship on Saturday, did not come true as he failed to get past Japan’s third seed Go Soeda 6-4 6-4.

India’s eighth seed Karunuday Singh saved a match point again to beat Warit Sornbutnark 4-6 7-5 7-6 (7-4) in two hours and 21 minutes. The Indian saved two match points to beat Pruchya Isarow 6-2 4-6 7-6 (10-8) in the first round on Saturday. 

Fourth-seeded Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland overcame a slow start to beat German Christopher Kas 4-6 6-1 6-4, Simon Stadler outclassed Chayanon Kaewsuto 6-1 6-2 and Oliver Marach of Austria upset sixth seeded Amir Weintraub of Israel 6-4 6-4.