Haase suffers Sijsling's slow burn
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Dutch outsider first to reach QF at Thailand Open
Igor Sijsling snapped his long losing streak with a victory over Robin Haase in their all-Dutch second-round match to become the first man to advance to the quarter-finals of the US$567,530 ATP Thailand Open at Impact Arena Muang Thong Thani yesterday.
The 26-year-old, who hails from Amsterdam, had lost six in a row coming into the match against his countryman but ended the slump with a 6-7 (7-6) 6-4 7-6 (7-2) win in just over two hours.
“It was very tough. We both played well. He was a bit defensive and tried to make the points a little longer. But I tried to play attacking tennis, especially at the end. I played well at the net and won important points. It was physically a very long, tough match,” said the Dutch.
Ranked 75th in the world, Sijsling is now in his third quarter-final of the year after making the last four in Dusseldorf and the last eight in Newport. He next faces the winner of the match between 2009 champion Gilles Simon, victorious in Metz last week, and Australian young gun Bernard Tomic tomorrow.
“I don’t know who I’m going to play with but I think Simon is the favourite.
He’s playing well and won last week. It will be tough for me.”
Fresh from winning a home Challenger title on Sunday, Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun took just 64 minutes to dispatch ailing Russian Evgeny Donskoy 6-3 6-2 in the first round.
World No 52 Lu, who won the doubles trophy with Danai Udomchoke 12 months ago, faced little challenge from the Russian who sought a medical timeout for his back injury.
“I tried to play the same [after the timeout]. I had to focus on my game. If you come out and you miss your shots you will start getting scared and worry about it. I told myself to get out of this problem, to slow down and focus,” said Lu, who reached the second round in Bangkok for the second time after 2011.
In the other first-round match yesterday, Uzbekistan’s No 1 Denis Istomin gave a tennis lesson to South Korean wild card Jeong Suk-young, with a 6-3 6-0 score line, while world No 20 and fifth seed Mikhail Youzhny beat Paolo Lorenzi of Italy 6-3 6-2.
Elsewhere, Australian Marinko Matosevic, who tamed Thai No 1 Junior Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul 6-1 6-1 in the first round on Tuesday night, took a muay thai lesson with 2006 K-1 World Max champion Buakaw Banchamek as part of a special activity at the Singha booth.
“I watched Thai boxing while I was in Samui last week. I’ve been in Thailand three times and I really like the country and the people,” said the 56th ranked Australian, who will play third seeded Milos Raonic of Canada in the second round.
Feliciano Lopez of Spain, after losing three first-round matches in his previous attempts in Bangkok, advanced to the quarter-finals with a 7-5 (7-6) 6-3 win over Japanese qualifier Go Soeda.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is set to preside over today’s opening of play, which is due at 7pm with the second-round match between defending champion and world No 9 Richard Gasquet and Slovakia’s Lucas Lacko.
