Thailand and Malaysian Open Updates Day 1

Written by: Global Chick on 27th September 2011

Thailand and Malaysian Open Updates Day 1

Italian Fabio Fognini hits the ball against Chilean Fernando González during their match of Davis Cup held at the Court Central in Santiago de Chile, Chile on, 16 September 2011. EPA/Felipe Trueba |

PTT Thailand Open – Bangkok

Wildcard player Danai Udomhoke of Thailand surprised everyone by defeating the Italian No. 6 seed Fabio Fognini 6-4 3-6 6-2 in the opening round at the PTT Thailand Open. Domchoke is ranked No. 217 and it was his first ATP match win for four years.

The number five seed Ivan Dodig of Croatia was also knocked out of the main draw by Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria. “I thought it was a great match today. I’m still overcoming the jetlag, but I hope to do well here as I was really looking forward to playing in Bangkok. It has been a great experience so far,” Dimitrov said. The Bulgarian won in straight sets 6-2 7-5. He will face the winner of Italy’s Simone Bolelli and Ernests Gulbis of Latvia next.

The No. 7 seed Dutchman Robin Haase had a win over the man with the longest name in tennis Thai wildcard Kittipong Wachiramanowong 6-3 7-6 (1). Haase said, “I was a break up in the second set and thought I was going to win easy because I was plying much better than him. But on the big points he played some great shots. I knew that I didn’t need to worry if it got into t tiebreak because I knew I had more experience than him and that was the really big advacntage for me today.”

Colombian Santiago Giraldo breezed past Dudi Sela of Israel 6-2 6-3. Giraldo will face the number two seed Gael Monfils of France in the second round.

No doubles matches were played on Monday.

Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur

Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus was given a wildcard by the tournament organisers at the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur due to his popularity. On Monday Baghdatis won his 200^th match win over the sixth seed American Alex Bogomolov Jr. 7-6 (3) 6-4.

“You don’t think about it getting the 200^th win. It is the first round so you just go in and try your best. Alex played well tonight so I had to up my game a little. I was very even, but I managed to get that little bit of an edge over him,” Marcos said. Baghdatis will now face the winner of Russian qualifier Mikhail Ledovskikh and Somdev Devvarman of India.

It was the battle of the wildcards on court in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. David Goffin of Belgium and Matthew Ebden of Australia drew each other in the first round. Goffin was too strong and took out the Aussie in two straight sets 6-4 7-6 (4) in one hour and 36 minutes. Goffin’s next opponent will be the No. 7 seed Dmitry Tursunov of Russia who needed three sets to overcome Chile’s Paul Capdeville 6-2 2-6 6-1.