Weerapat overcomes pain, rival
[TENNIS] Up-and-coming young Thai player Weerapat Doakmaiklee brushed aside pain in an injured arm to defeat the second-seeded Yu Xin-yuan of China to reach the quarter-finals of the US$10,000 (Bt380,000) LTAT Bangkok Open Men's Futures 2 tournament at the Tennis Academy of Asia in Bangkok yesterday.
Weerapat, who sustained his injury during a doubles match on Tuesday, had his left arm sprayed with a pain-killer several times in the first set against the Chinese player before winning in three sets 3-6 6-4 6-3. "The pain was terrible in the first set and I had my arm sprayed until I felt numb," he said. "After that I just hit the ball deep to the baseline and he just made so many mistakes," said Weerapat, who turned 19 on Tuesday. The wild card entrant, who last week reached a semi-final for the first time in his career, plays Canadian Robert Steckley, who routed Ravishankar Pathanjali 6-3 6-0. Weerapat hopes his injury will not affect his play. "I will take some medicine and use some ice. I have to skip practice in the afternoon and rest as much as I can," he said. In the other second round matches, Filipino Patrick-John Tierro beat Philipp Piyamongkol of Germany 6-4 6-4, Japan's Takahiro Terachi dispatched South Korea's Nam Hyun-woo 6-1 6-3 and Australian Marinko Matosevic won after his South African rival retired at 6-7 (14-12) 6-2 2-0.
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