Tamarine upsets sixth seed Kanepi, cadet Obziler progress

Kolkata, Sep 18 (UNI) Tamarine Tanasugarn caused the first ripple in the WTA Sunfeast Open, ousting sixth seed Kaia Kanepi of Estonia in a three-hour two-minute marathon tie at the Netaji Indoor Stadium today.

The unseeded Thai, ranked 124 in the World, who had to use all her resources to squeeze out a 6-7 (10-12), 7-5, 6-0 win at the Centre Court over the much taller world No 72, saved as many as six match points in the second set to achieve the feat.

In the other match, held simultaneously on Court I, Israel's Tzipora Obziler marched into the second round, brushing aside Yulia Beygelzimer of Ukraine 6-2, 6-3.

The win will pit Tanasugarn against the winner of the match between feed-up Abigail Spears and Uzbekistan's Akgul Amanmuradova in Round II.

The 29-year-old had an identical singles' win-loss record (20-20) going into this match and had never met Kanepi before.

Both players started on a clumsy note, with the tennis never reaching the heights it should when a former world No 19 (Tanasugarn reached her career-high in May 13, 2002) and a Grand Slam third rounder (Kanepi made it to the third round of this year's US Open where she was defeated by Virginie Razzano) are playing.

It was bit of a struggle out in the middle in the first set with Kanepi and Tanasugarn trading breaks from the first game. The battle was restricted in the baseline though, with both showing a marked reluctance to come up at the net.

In the fourth game of the first set, Tanasugarn was down three break points. With a perseverance typical of the unassuming Thai, she saved each of them, eventually holding to draw level at 2-2.

At the other end of the spectrum, failure to finish off the advantage ultimately proved to be the Estonian's bane.

The world No 72, who was relying mainly on her big serves to move out of trouble, broke back down 5-6 to set up a scintillating tie-break which seemed to carry on for ages.

Her big serve came handy again (sending down five aces to Tanasugarn's 0 in first set) as she clinched the tie-break 12-10.

The first set lasted one hour and 14 minutes.

Kanepi, who reached the semi-finals in the inaugural edition of this meet last year, looked the favourite at this stage of the match.

Breaking Tanasugarn in the ninth game of the second set to go up 5-4, the Estonian, who turned pro in 2000, looked set to finish off the match. It was here that the wheel of fortune turned.

An astonishing comeback from Tanasugarn, who has a lone singles and five doubles WTA titles to her credit, saw her save six match points in the crucial tenth game which ran into deuce nine times.

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