Varunya and Nudnida Set All Thai Clash in Hua Hin ITF Circuit Semis.
[TENNIS] Hua Hin – Close buddies Varunya Wongteanchai and Nudnida Luangnam set up an all Thai semi-final showdown following their contrastive styles of victories in US$10,000 Cal-Comp & XYZ Printing ITF women’s Pro Circuit 4 at True Arena Hua Hin on Thursday.
Varunya combined a variety of shots to confuse Ahn Yu jin of South Korea and won the match 6-4 6-2 while the 29-year-old Nudnida was taken to three sets by sixth seed Kamonwan Buayam before outlasting the young opponent 7-5 1-6 6-4 three hours and 4 minutes.
For the 23-year-old Varunya, this will be her second semi-final at the True Arena after reaching this same stage last month. The younger sister of Thai No 2 Varatchaya mixed up spins, moon ball and flat groundstrokes to draw errors from the South Korean qualifier in the match that last over 90 minutes.
“If you give her the ball she liked, she would have whipped back with clean winners. So I have to get her off the comfort zone,” said Varunya of the Rajabhat Suan Dusit University.
“I tried to be very patient against Anh as I didn’t want to blow away the lead and had to play three sets like in the first and second rounds. I was more focused today and it ended in two sets,” said the unseeded Thai who spent a week training at home in Chiang Rai with her father ahead of the Hua Hin Circuit 4.
Next up for Varunya is her hitting partner Nudnida who toughed it out for the third day to move forward. The former world No 195 summoned her experience to stamped her superiority over the 20-year-old rival for a 5-0 head-to-head record .
“It was a very tough match as Kamonwan served and hit the ball so powerful. My body has been affected from two tough matches and I had to rely on my experience today. Just a few mistakes she made at the end of the third set decided the match,” said Nudnida who has never competed against Varunya in a real match.
“We practice together and get used to her style. It comes down to who controls the situation better. I hope to rest well and get fresh for the match,” Nudnida said.
Top seed Natela Dzalamidze of Russia utilized her heavy groundstrkes to topple eighth seed Chihiro Muramatsu of Japan 6-1 6-1 to face Circuit 3 finalist Natalija Kostic of Serbia who edged out Haruna Arakawa of Japan 4-6 6-1 6-4.
In the doubles semi-finals, Kamonwan redeemed her pride from the singles loss by teaming with Ling Zhang of China to beat Chihiro Muramatsu and Nozomi Fujioka of Japan 6-7 (4-7) 6-4 11-9. They will play Jawairiah Noordin of Malaysia and Jessy Rompies of Indonesia who stunned top seed Mana Ayukawa of Japan and Chieh-Yu Hsu of Taiwan 6-3 6-1 in the final on Friday.
