Second Seed Garin Survives Three Set Points to Advance in Rain Delayed Bangkok Challenger
Second seed Christian Garin of Chile survived triple set point to beat the inspired American Daniel Nguyen 7-5 6-1 in the rain delayed opening round actions of the US$50,000 Bangkok Challenger Open 2 at Rama Gardens Hotel on Tuesday.
The 20-year-old from Santiago had to dig deep to escape from three set points at 3-5 and 4-5 against the American Vietnamese before prevailing in one hour 24 minutes under the gloomy and rainy atmosphere in Bangkok.
“It was a really tough first set. He was playing aggressive tennis and I didn’t know him before. But I tried to stay solid and won the first set. Then I was playing much better in the second set,” said the 208th Chilean rising star who was lucky to finish his match momentarily before rain suspended play for an hour. Weather condition also slowed down play one behind schedule in the morning.
“It was difficult to play under this humid condition. I sweated a lot. But as long as I win, it makes me happy. I want to keep on going in this tournament,” added Garin who reached his first hard-court Challenger quarter-final last week.
The winner of eight ITF Futures titles opted to skip the on-going Australian Qualifying round in Melbourne to take part in this Challenger where he is seeded second behind last week’s champion Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia.
“I want to make the final but it won’t be easy. I have to focus match by match. I’m here in Bangkok because I want to get some points this year. I think I should be ready for Melbourne next year,” added Garin.
In the other first round matches, Germain Gegounon of German upset third seed Aslan Karatsev of Russia 4-6 6-1 6-3. Sadio Doumbia of France beat Taiwanese qualifier Jimmy Wang 6-3 7-5 (8-6). Zhe Li of China took just 71 minutes to beat Cem Ilkel of Turkey 6-3 6-3.
Jurgen Zopp of Estonia handed Thai wildcard player Chaleechan Tanasugarn a double bagel 6-0 6-0.
Top seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serrbia, winner of Bangkok Challenger 1 on Sunday, came back from a slow start to beat Lee Kuan-Yi 2-6 6-3 6-3.
In the last first round match of the day, up-and-coming German teenager Daniel Altmaier won his first Challenger maindraw match following a 6-2 6-2 win over Lee Kuan-Yee of Taiwan.
