• 
• 

Published on September 30, 2007

[Making their first appearances in an ATP final, Sonchat and Sanchai, dubbed the 'Amazing Twins", played super-duper tennis to oust Australian Ashley Fisher and American Jim Thomas 6-1 6-1 in only 51 minutes, to everyone's surprise.

"It was easier than we expected. We returned very well, hitting two winners on the return in each game. We had been focused throughout the match,'' said the elder Sonchat, whose best results on the pro circuit were semi-finals at Newport and Los Angeles.

If they succeed today, the siblings will be the first Thais to hold an ATP doubles trophy. Paradorn Srichaphan lifted ATP titles before but the five championships came from singles.

"We will try to think of it as another match. We don't want to put ourselves under pressure thinking about the ATP final,'' said Sanchai, who will play the winning pair between American Vincent Spadea and Fernando Verdasco of Spain, and Frenchmen Michael Llodra and Nicolas Mahut. "Spadea and Verdasco are more like singles players but they can be dangerous. The other pair will be even tougher, as Llodra won Wimbledon this year and Mahut reached the 2004 US Open semi-finals,'' Sanchai added.

In the singles semi-finals, Benjamin Becker of Germany, stunned the ailing third-seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 3-6 6-4 6-4 to reach his first career final, while sixth-seeded Russian Dmitry Tursunov reached his second final of the season after coming back from a second-set lapse to outlast Spain's Fernando Verdasco 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 6-4.

Becker finally put a digit in his lifetime record against the Czech, who had remained superior to him in their three previous encounters. He has been in three semi-finals, including two this year, in San Jose and Delray Beach.

"Obviously it's a great achievement to reach the final. Just one more to go to win the title,'' said Becker, who is even with Tursunov in their head-to-head record at 1-1. Becker retired in their match in Indianapolis last year while Turunov won 7-6 (9-7) 6-4 in a challenger final in Ukraine the same year.

"He has been playing well this year, he won in Indianapolis. It will be tough. I will try not to think about the occasion. I will try to play my game like the last set and a half [against Berdych],'' added the 26-year-old German.

The sixth-seed Russian, who won in Indianapolis in July before suffering three first-round exits, won the other semi-final after two hours and 27 minutes of ground-strokes battle.

"Normally he is the kind of player who goes for big shots when he is down. But today he mixed it up, playing safer than usual. I was a little tense. He has a good weapon on the forehand and I had to make good returns. That's why you saw a lot of mistakes from me,' said Tursunov, who settled his score with the Spaniard, who beat him in Roland Garros this year.

"I lost three first rounds before I reached the final here. This year has been up and down for me but I'm happy that I can come back in the match. I hope I'm not going to choke up in the final and hopefully will hold the trophy."

After six-all in the first set, Tursunov stepped up a gear to take charge in the tie-break and wrapped it up with a short backhand cross-court that Verdasco could never hit back on court. The Spaniard, however, returned the favour in the second set, forcing the Russian to spray two shots long to win 6-4 and level the tie.

Verdasco was down a double break at 1-4 but reduced the deficit to 3-4. He was several times one point away from making it to four-all until the Russian delivered an ace to lead at 5-3. Tursunov, after missing two match points, wrapped up the fight with an impressive backhand down-the-line winner to move into the final.

Becker managed a crucial break in the 10th game to win the second set and went ahead to break for 4-3 in the third set. Berdych suffered a back and right leg injury and took treatment twice. The Czech finally surrendered after Becker whipped a forehand winner.

Lerpong Amsa-ngiam

 The Nation

Nonthaburi