Ratiwatana Brothers overwhelm Basic/Chen in the quarter-finals – Dunlop World Challenge 2012 CH
Top seeded Thai contenders, Sanchai Ratiwatana and Sonchat Ratiwatana, eased through their quarter-final battle against the unseeded tandem of Mirza Basic and Ti Chen on Wednesday afternoon. They took merely 59 minutes to register
a 6-4, 6-3 score line, earning a spot in the semi-final round of the ATP Challenger Tour event in Toyota, Japan.
It was a relatively one-sided contest, with the Thai twins dominating the show for most of the time. The Ratiwatana Brothers used their serve to the optimum effect and gave rarely gave away any chances to their opponents in the
entire matchup. They played aggressive game all the way, avoiding long rallies and bagging plenty of cross-court winners en route to victory.
The opening set took off in a conventional fashion, as both sides held their respective serves in the opening four games. Sanchai and Sonchat drew first blood in the fifth game and broke into a 4-2 lead later. Their unseeded opponents
retaliated in the eighth game to level the score line to 4-4, only to be broken in the very next game to fall back on 4-5 deficit. The Thai contenders comprehensively served out of the first set at 5-4 and posted a 1-0 set lead in the match.
Basic and Chen kept playing cautiously in the following set as well and held the opening three serves to tie the scores at 3-3. The Ratiwatana Brothers shifted their gears from there onwards and nailed two successive break points
to shatter their opponents’ confidence completely. They finished off the set at 6-3 and sealed another straight sets victory in the tournament.
The Ratiwatana twins had a 76 per cent precision on their first serve in the contest, pocketing away 28 out of 37 points on it and fired nine cracking aces to earn un-fought points. They had eight break opportunities but only four
conversions proved sufficient to dispose of their bleak rivals. On the other hand, Basic and Chen had a below par serve accuracy of merely 46 per cent and secured 16 out of 25 first serve points. They registered only one break point in the entire matchup,
squandering two priceless opportunities in the second set to finish on the losing side in the end.
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