Top seed Groth goes out of Bangkok Open lamely

The US$50,000 KPN Renewables Bangkok Open Challenger lost its top seed when Sam Groth of Australia was forced to retire during his opening round match against Liam Broady of Great Britain at the Rama Gardens Hotel on Tuesday.

The world No 97, the world’s fastest server, lost his serve right at the start of the match and also injured his arm during the first set, which ended 4-6 in favour of Broady. The 28-year-old Groth, a doubles semifinalist along with Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan in the 2014 French Open, walked towards the chair umpire and told him that he was conceding the match.

This was the second consecutive week that Groth had to end his match prematurely. Last week, he had to retire during his quarter-final match in a Challenger event in Seoul.

Another seeded victim of the day was American John-Patrick Smith, who retired with heat stroke while trailing Australian Mitchell Kruger 2-6 1-4.

Former world No 44 and fourth seed Lukas Lacko of the Slovak Republic needed two hours and 22 minutes to edge past South African teenage rising star Lloyd George Harris 75 46 63. The nine-time Challenger winner faced several break points from the 19-year-old opponent in the last game before he drew easy errors from the young opponent to move on.

Elsewhere former Chinese No 1 and seventh seed  Ze Zhang ousted Juan Ignacio Londero of Argentina 7-5 6-2 while Agustin Velotti of Argentina toppled Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan 7-6 (7-5) 6-4.

Two qualifiers remained in the fray. Japanese Yuya Kibi upset Australian Matt Reid 6-2 7-6 (7-5), while big-serving Lloyd Glasspool of Great Britain routed Andrew Whittington of Australia 6-4 6-0.  

Another qualifier Sam Barry of Ireland was three points away from the match against local wildcard holder Jirat Navasirisomboon at 6-2 5-2 15-30 when tropical rain suspended play for an hour. But he later finished off the match 6-2 6-2. India’s Siddharth Rawat, the other qualifier, went down to Remi Boutillier of France 4-5 6-7 (4-7). .

Thai Kittipong Wachiramanowong lost to Jason Jung of Taiwan 3-6 2-6  and Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul went down to American Sekou Bangoura 3-6 3-6.