Thai Twins Eye On First Home Challenger Title in 7 Years
Second seed Sonchat and Sanchai Ratiwatana eye on winning their first home Challenger title in seven years after they came from behind to beat fourth seed Chen Ti and Yi Chu-Huan of Taiwan 3-6 7-5 10-1 in the doubles semi-finals of the US$50,000 Bangkok Open Challenger 2 at Rama Gardens Hotel on Friday.
he twin brothers who won their only home Challenger here in 2010 managed a crucial break for three all in the second set which was the turning point for them to turn the whole things around and won the match.
“We made too many errors in the first set and at the beginning of the second. But I have to give credits for my opponents especially Chen Ti who was serving really well today,” said Sonchat, the elder brother.
“But after we broke back in the second set, we felt more relaxed while the pressure witched on their side. It was more comfortable for us from then on,” said Sanchai.
The siblings today line up today’s clash with Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul of France, who won a Futures title in Hua Hin a few weeks ago. The French pair upset third seed Kevin Krawietz of Germany and Albano Olivetti of France 4-6 6-1 10-6.
“Even though we have better world rankings, they made it to the finals which means they must be quite good. Reboul is quite fast and has good hands. But we want to finally win a home Challenger after losing the final here last August,” Sonchat said.
Janko Tipsarevic
In the singles semi-final, top seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia extended his winning streaks in 2017 to 9-0 after he outclassed teenage qualifier Daniel Altmaier of Germany 6-3 6-3.
The winner of Bangkok Challenger 1 last week, who opted to play two Bangkok Challengers instead of the Australian Open qualifying, is the heavy-favourite in the final match against Li Zhe of China who upset Chilean Christian Garin of Chile 2-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-3 in two hours and 18 minutes.
Li Zhe of China
Daniel Altmaier
