THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Nicha Remains Last Thai in Hua Hin ITF Circuit.

Nicha Remains Last Thai in Hua Hin ITF Circuit.

Seventh seed Nicha Lertpitaksinchai remained the only Thai hope left in the singles draw of the US$25,000 Singha Cal-Comp & XYZ Printing ITF Women’s Circuit 2 after she beat Chinese Lu Jiaxi 6-2 6-4 in the second round at True Arena Hua Hin yesterday.

Playing her first tournament on home soil this season, the Thai No 3 Nicha proved more superior in her baseline game as she took one hour and 25 minutes to seal off the victory and became the only Thai survivor with both Noppawan Lertcheewakarn and Nicha Lertpitaksinchai  bowing out in the Wednesday’s actions.

“I’ve learned that she hit spin ball and plays solid tennis. So I tried to open the court and finish points first,” said the 25-year-old Nicha who was up a break at 4-2 before a brief bouts of nerves got the better out of her to allow the Chinese to break back for four all. The Thai however regrouped her concentration to break back and finally held serves to win the match.

“Sometimes it happened. You were winning and you were hard on yourself but you ended up being under pressure. But she was raising her game too as she didn’t want to lose. I tried to regain my control and pulled it off,” said the 311-ranked Nicha who sets up today’s quarter-final clash against second seed Lu Jia-jing of China, a 7-6 (7-5) 6-1 victor over countrywoman Hanyu Guao.

 

 

The Thai eyes on a vengeance over the 247th ranked Lu who just beat her 7-5 2-6 7-6 (7-5) in the quarter-finals of a US$50,000 ITF event in Zhuhai two weeks ago.

“I lost to her in a close match. It depends on who keeps the ball on court more. I have to stick to my game plan and cut off unnecessary errors,” added Nicha who is tied with the Chinese 2-2  in their head-to-head record.

Last week’s semi-finalist Noppawan staged a gusty come back from 4-6 0-5 to reduce the gap to 4-5 in the match with eighth seed Ran Tian. But her resistance did not last long as she was hampered by left foot injury and eventually lost the match 4-6 4-6.

The other Thai shown the exit on the day was Kamonwan as she went down to circuit 1 semi-finalist Katarzyna Kawa of Poland 3-6 6-7 (4-7).

In the other second round matches, up-and-coming Chinese teenager Gao Xinyu survived two match points at 4-5 in the decisive set to upset top seed and world No 186 Arina Rodionova of Australia 6-1 2-6 7-5 in a grueling battle of two hours and 29 minutes. The 18-year-old Gao also survived a match point to beat Shiho Akita of Japan in the last week’s championship match.

Three other seeds had no problem moving forwards. Third seed Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands beat Maria Paigina of Russia 6-3 7-6 (8-6), fourth seed Aleksandrina Naydenova of Bulgaria beat  Fang Ying Xun  of China 6-3 7-6 (7-5) and sixth seed  Akita of Japan downed  Na Ri Kim of South Korea 6-2 7-5.

 

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