Home favorite Tamarine Tanasugarn overpowered Bulgarian-born Sesil Karatantcheva of Kazakhstan 6-2, 6-0 yesterday to reach the final of the US$220,000 Pattaya Open.
Tamarine played solidly throughout, winning game after game with powerful forehands that forced woeful returns from Karatantcheva, who returned to the game in 2008 after serving a two-year ban after twice testing positive for nandrolone.
With the home crowd behind her in the scorching heat, Tamarine, who at 32 is one of the oldest players on the tour, broke the 20-year-old Karatantcheva twice to open up a 4-0 lead in the first set.
PHOTO: AFP
SQUANDERED CHANCES
Karatantcheva put up a lot of resistance in the one hour, 20-minute match but struggled with her serves and paid the price for repeatedly squandering her chances to break her opponent.
“The match wasn’t as easy as it seemed from the score, especially being held six or seven times at deuce on second set. I just tried to take each game at a time,” Los Angeles-born Tamarine told reporters.
“I’m very satisfied and happy to get it over with quickly. Tomorrow, I have nothing to lose,” she said.
THAI FIRST
Tamarine, the daughter of an Olympic basketball player, was the first Thai female to reach a Grand Slam singles quarter-final at Wimbledon in 2008.
In yesterday’s other semi-final top seed Vera Zvonereva of Russia defeated Russian born No. 4 Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
additional reporting by staff writer
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