Top seed Radwanska beats Tammy
by Barry Wood

So, the top seed is into the semi-finals at the expense of the last Thai standing, Tamarine Tanasugarn. Agnieszka Radwanska beat her 6-2 6-3.

It was a match of two contrasting sets, after the Pole swept the first five games. Radwanska won the first nine points to immediately reduce the partisan crowd to silence, but Tammy finally found her feet and then began to compete on much better terms. She held for 5-1 to raise some cheers, and then managed to break as Radwanska served for the set. It was much too far for Tammy to come back, though, and Radwanska broke again in the next game to take the set.

Playing far more solidly and rallying well, Tanasugarn broke to lead the second set 2-1, but failed to maintain her advantage, losing three points for a 3-1 lead before double-faulting to level at 2-2. The sixth game was a tight one, with Tanasugarn fighting off two break points before eventually holding for 3-3 with her fifth game point. Then, with Radwanska leading 4-3, Tanasugarn barely played a return, believing it had landed long, and shortly after made a forehand error to leave her opponent serving for the match.

“I started slow again today,” said Tanasugarn, who also dropped the opening set of her previous match. “Her game is kind of hard for me to adjust my game to because she hit slow, fast, slow, fast and she got every ball back and I needed to play great tennis and be patient and keep the ball in play. She played very good and pressured me to play very solid, and I was not in my groove. She pressured me to play good shots and I was watching her rather than watching my balls.

“The second set was much better because I got adjusted to the way she was playing. It was hard though because I got one break and then missed everything. But she played well and played smart and didn’t give me any opportunities.”

Radwanska was surprised at how easy the match at the start, but then said she had needed to fight hard to keep her opponent at bay.

“She started to play at 5-0,” said Radwanska. “Maybe she was tired or nervous. The first five games were very fast and easy, but then she started to play much better.

“Then it was very hard to play because she moves good and had some good shots. Maybe in the first set she made some mistakes but the second set was tough. The second set was 50/50, long games.”

Radwanska’s next opponent will be Ekaterina Bychkova, from Russia. Who is going to be fresher? Radwanska, and here’s why. By the time Radwanska got on court to play two comfortable sets the sun had gone down and the temperature had cooled. And why she had to wait so long was because Bychkova took two hours 31 minutes and two seconds to win 4-6 7-6 6-3 against fellow Russian Vesna Manasieva. There was a lot of noise coming from Manasieva’s end of the court, although not quite at the Maria Shreikarova level, and she almost won the match, holding a point for victory in the second set tiebreak.

The other semi is between American tour veteran Jill Craybas and Uzbekistan’s Akgul Amanmuradova. Craybas comfortably overcame Slovenia’s Andreja Klepac 6-4 6-4, and Amanmuradova saved two set points before edging past Yung-Jan Chan from Chinese Taipei 6-1 7-6.