Luksika exits Melbourne with vow to get tougher
A day after becoming only the second Thai woman to win a Grand Slam match, teenager Luksika Kumkhum came down to earth with a bump after a second-round defeat to American Jamie Hampton 6-1 6-2 at the Australian Open yesterday.
The Thai qualifier was nowhere near her top form as she produced a string of unforced errors to lose the match in just 57 minutes.
“I wanted to play well, and I put myself under too much pressure. She served well and hit big. Her shots were so powerful that I had trouble with racquet vibration when I returned them,’’ said Luksika, who upset world No 39 Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden in the first round.
Despite the confidence boost from reaching the second round in her Grand Slam debut, the 19-year-old from Chanthaburi said she still had to fix loopholes in her game, especially her physical conditioning.
“I need to be physically tougher. I have to work more on my muscles and improve my serves,’’ said Luksika, who served six double faults in the match.
After breaking the American in the opener, Luksika lost 11 games in a row as the American dominated play with booming serves, blasting forehands and fast approaches to the net. After falling 0-5 in the second set, Luksika regained her composure with double-fisted groundstrokes and rallied to 2-5. But the rising star from America served and volleyed to hold the eighth game and with it the match.
“I would have loved to win but this [tournament performance] is still beyond my target. I didn’t think I would even make it to the main draw,” said Luksika, whose rise in the world rankings from 201 to the top 170 next week should see her overtake Tamarine Tanasugarn as the No 1 player in Thailand. The teenager next plays the Pattaya Open, which begins on January 28 at the Dusit Resort Hotel. She plans to enter bigger events after her impressive result in Australia.
“I need to change my tour plan a bit now. I will play more US$50,000 events, or at least US$25,000 events,” said the Thai, who returns to Thailand with her coach Sakanun Laoketkij on Saturday.
The men’s doubles saw both Thai duos exit in first-round encounters yesterday. Sonchat and Sanchai Ratiwatana lost to Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky and Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 6-2 while Danai Udomchoke and Jimmy Wang of Taiwan went down to Colombia’s Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah 3-6 6-3 7-6 (11-9).
