Published on June 13, 2005

[TENNIS] Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn produced one of the greatest comebacks of her career by fighting off five match points to beat Asia’s new star Sania Mirza of India in the qualifying rounds of the US$585,000 (Bt23.4 million) Hastings Direct International Championships in Eastbourne on Saturday.

The Thai grass court specialist appeared to be heading for the exit when she was trailing the Indian teenager 1-6 and 1-4 in the second set, but clung on to score an astonishing 1-6 7-6 (8-6) 7-5 win in two hours and 20 minutes.

A day after losing a quarter-final to American Laura Granville in Birmingham, the gutsy Thai held off two match points in the second set and three more in the deciding set.

Ranked 64th in the world, the Thai handed the opening set to Mirza, No 75 on the WTA rankings, after only 25 minutes. She then almost dug her own grave by dropping two service games in the second set to fall 1-4 behind.

But the Thai, who has a reputation for hanging on when her back is against the wall, battled back to 3-5 and staved off a match point. She then took charge of the next three games to gain the upper-hand for the first time at 6-5, but the hard-hitting Indian held on to force a tie-break.

The Thai then built a strong lead at 5-2 only to let Mirza, who upset reigning US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia this year in Dubai, take four points in a row to reach another match point at 6-5.

Gutsy and determined, Tamarine won her next two serves and then broke Mirza to turn the situation around and level the match at 7-6 (8-6).

Despite blowing a couple of chances, Mirza did not totally collapse in the final set, breaking Tamarine twice to go up 4-1 and 5-2.

Again Tamarine gave her all and held off three more match points at 3-5 and 4-5. And when she finally drew level at 5-5, the match swung in her favour. She surge ahead to 6-5 after a break in the 11th game and eventually wrapped up the topsy-turvy affair at 7-5.

In her second round match scheduled for late last night (Bangkok time), Tamarine was to play American eighth-seeded Mashona Washington, who is ranked two places above her.

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