Let's not allow Luksika's talent to go waste
After many years, Tamarine Tanasugarn's reign as Thailand's No 1 women's tennis player has come to an end. Rising star Luksika Kumkhum, a 19-year-old girl from Chanthaburi, has ascended the throne. All hail the new queen! By reaching the second round of t
One interesting point about this new local sensation is that she was unspectacular in her junior years. The only highlight was a semi-final place in the girls’ doubles in the Australian Open three years ago.
Back in 2008, the whole country had put a lot of hopes on Noppawan Lertcheewagarn, who ended that year as the world junior No 1 before going on to seal the Wimbledon girls’ singles crown the following year. Many predicted that she would become the country’s next best thing after Tamarine. In the dog-eat-dog world of tennis, there’s no guarantee that you could, no matter how good you were in the junior circles, repeat that success at the professional level.
Despite some fairly good results, including a runners-up doubles trophy in the 2011 WTA Malaysian Open and making it to the US Open main draw the same year, Noppawan, 21, did not quite live up to expectations and quickly faded away over the past 12 months. From a career-best No 149 in September 2011, she slipped to 268. Tammy is at 152, Nudnida Luangnam, 212, and Varatchaya Wongteanchai, 248. There have been lots of questions about Noppawan’s focus and commitment to tennis. Perhaps she could not cope with the spotlight and the fame that arrived with success and as a consequence has gone off track.
Luksika, on the other hand, had not gained much recognition. Frankly speaking, she did not set the junior circuit on fire. She started to show some potential only in the second half of 2012 after intensive fitness training with coach Suang Chantra-urai. She won her first US$25,000 ITF trophy in Astana in July. It was followed by a quarter-final place in a bigger ITF tournament in the same Kazakh city where the prize money was $100,000 after entering the event as a qualifier. She made it to the main draw of the Guangzhou and Osaka WTA events, back to back in October, a rare feat by a Thai player.
But it was not until January that Luksika proved what she had done late last year was no fluke. After losing in the final qualifying round in the Auckland WTA event, she entered her first major in Melbourne and unexpectedly won three matches to grab a spot in the main draw. By knocking out world No 39 Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden in the opening round, she suddenly made newspaper headlines and sparked a revival of fading Thai tennis.
Besides the second-round berth in the Pattaya Open, the latest upset win over world No 32 Yaroslav Shvedova in Fed Cup last Thursday has underlined her burgeoning promise.
Attacking groundstrokes and quick footwork plus mental toughness make Luksika a competitive player, but to catch up with fellow players in modern tennis, she still needs to work harder on her physical fitness. The double-fisted swings on both sides of the court will limit her mobility. Unless she becomes fast and strong enough to chase down the balls against heavy-hitters on the WTA tour, she will achieve only moderate success.
Also, supervision by a professional team would ensure that the talented girl’s potential does not go waste. The world of fashion, new technologies, social media, if not properly used, could be a distraction.
