Noppawan Lertcheewakarn slays Regina Kulikova in last eight – Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge 2011
Thai Noppawan Lertcheewakarn crushed Russian Regina Kulikova with a bagel at the Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge 2011, an ITF Women’s Circuit event taking place on the hard courts in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. She barely sweated
to register a 6-0, 6-3 victory over the 22-year-old Russian to secure a semi-final spot on Thursday.
Standing at the 198th rank with 309 points in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Lertcheewakarn swallowed the Russian, ranked sixty-seven levels above her, on their first meeting. She not only inched towards her
maiden title this season but also booked a last four spot.
A former top 150, Lertcheewakarn re-created her magic in the opening set and after unleashing flurry of groundstrokes, she went on a six games killing spree and earned a bagel. The Thai starlet brushed off all breakpoints came
across and cashed in three breakpoint chances to her advantage to win comfortably.
The Thai starlet carried her winning ways in the final set. She stayed on the savage mode and reeled off first three games in a row before the Russian could come on the score sheet for the first time. Lertcheewakarn then maintained
consistency in her game and eventually bagged the set with a 6-3 success. She again warded off all breakpoints faced and converted one out of many breakpoint chances to her advantage.
The Thai hasn’t had much progress this season and the highest she made was reaching the last eight at Sanya ITF Women’s Circuit event. She also fell to a six match losing streak but did manage to reach the main draw of the US Open
and Osaka WTA International event.
After earning this victory, she set-up a date with the top seed Simona Halep of Romania. World number 53, Halep bounced back to register a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over the Belarusian Olga Govortsova, ranked sixty-one spots below
her.
Sixth seeded Dutchwoman Arantxa Rus will join the Thai in the last four. She edged over 27-year-old Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan in straight sets on their first meeting to book this spot.
20-year-old Dutchwoman lost her serve once but broke the Amanmuradova’s serve four times to formulate a 6-2, 6-4 score line in over an hour.
Next up for the seed is the Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic who battled past Pole Urszula Radwanska in a three set thriller to reach this spot. The French veteran overpowered Radwanska in a topsy turvy match and subsequently registered
a 7-5, 2-6, 6-0 victory.
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