Published on January 10, 2005

[TENNIS] Tamarine Tanasugarn will kick off her 2005 campaign against a low-ranked opponent in the US$110,000 (Bt4.4 million) Canberra Women’s Classic, a prelude to the next week’s Australian Open.

Starting the year at 67 in the world, Tamarine has been given a seemingly comfortable assignment today against Australian wildcard Monique Adamczak, ranked 360 in the world.

Tamarine had only one warm-up before the tournament when she teamed with Russian Maria Sharapova in an exhibition match in Chiang Mai on January 2 where they beat Venus Williams and Suchanan Viratprasert.

Thai No 2 Suchanan, meanwhile, made an early exit from the Canberra tournament in the qualifying competition.

Suchanan was unlucky to have to play two matches on Saturday. She first upset seventh-seeded Gallina Voskoboeva of Russia 6-2 6-7 (6-8) 6-2 in the first round in the morning but lost steam in the afternoon and went down to Lenka Nemeckova of the Czech Republic 5-7 2-6.

Her next tournament is the Australian Open qualifying round which will start later this week. Davis Cup player Danai Udomchoke will also be taking part in the qualifying for the Melbourne Grand Slam.

Johansson wins

nSecond-seeded Joachim Johansson of Sweden won his second career title yesterday with a 7-5 6-3 win over Taylor Dent at the Australian men’s hardcourt championships.

His first tournament win was at Memphis in 2004, a breakthrough year in which he also made the semi-finals of the US Open and moved from 113th in the rankings to No 11.

Fifth-seeded Dent survived three break points in the fifth game of the match, but managed to keep the first set on serve until 5-5, when Johansson gained the first break.

Johansson took the score from deuce to a break point on a backhand return winner, then hit another crosscourt backhand return winner on the next point to take a 6-5 lead.

Johansson double-faulted on set point but followed that up with an ace to take the opening set.

He broke Dent’s serve again in the third game of the second set. Up 5-3, he finished the match by again breaking serve, blazing a forehand return winner to complete the victory on his fourth match point.

Johansson said he needs to pick up his game before the Australian Open.

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