Thailand upset Indonesia in Fed Cup
Thailand upset Indonesia in Fed Cup
Agence France-Presse, Tokyo
Tamarine Tanasugarn guided Thailand to an upset victory over second seed Indonesia in the Fed Cup tennis Asia-Oceania zone preliminary round here Wednesday.
Suchanun Viratprasert, ranked 334th in the world, scored a surprise win over Wynne Adiati Prakusya 6-2, 1-6, 6-1 in the opener, before Tamarine downed Angelique "Angie" Widjaja 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) to give the Thais an insurmountable 2-0 lead.
The fourth-seeded Thais stood with three straight wins in the six-team Pool B round robin to move closer towards topping the group.
The top two teams from Pool A and B will play the runners-up from their opposite groups in Saturday's play-offs. The winners of the two matches will both advance to playoffs for a place in the World Group to be played in July.
The competition was halted due to rain when Suchanun was 0-3 down in the second set, and the contest was played on the center court with its roof closed, while other outside matches were postponed.
"I'm very happy and very proud of her (Suchanun) today, she played very well," said Tamarine.
"She still hasn't much experience, but she can play well. Anyway, we are still an underdog, so we are just going to keep working hard and try to be positive in each match."
Suchanun lost the second set when the match was resumed, but everything went well in the final set as she jumped ahead 4-0.
Prakusya, ranked 115th, lost her nerve when a line call worked against her at 1-4 and 30-15, and then hit a forehand hard into the net to give a 30-40 break point. She double-faulted on the next point before fading out.
Suchanun, 20, said the rain-interruption did not affect her play.
Tamarine overcame a topsy-turvy match against Angie, in which 10 of the games went against serves.
"She (Angie) was returning very well today. Today, I tried to play very aggressive, but during the second set, I was rushed a bit and missed easy shots," said Tamarine, ranked 32nd against Angie's 63rd.
"At the end, I tried to calm myself down and keep the ball in play. It worked. And my serve worked today, it helped on important points."
Thailand play Kazakhstan in their next match on Thursday before taking on Taiwan on Friday.