On a rain-soaked penultimate day at the World Junior Tennis 2009 Asia/Oceania Qualifying in Malaysia on Friday, No. 7 seeds Hong Kong beat sixth-seeded Thailand 2-0 behind a pair of three-set wins in singles by Venus Pang and Katherine Ip to set up a playoff for 5th place with 4th-seeded Indonesia on Saturday.
First up at No. 2 singles, Venus Pang was gutsy in her win, overcoming the taxing environment as well as her Thai opponent, Kamonwan Buayam, to win 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, in a match that took two hours and forty minutes to complete.
With the lead in hand, Katherine Ip did not disappoint at No. 1 singles, as she also needed to dig deep to come from behind to beat Thai number one Gornganok Tiraganok, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, in two hours and twenty-eight minutes under the burden of the taxing South East Asian heat and humidity.
Rain had earlier postponed the start of yesterday's schedule of matches to the point where a late commencement again forced most of the doubles match-ups to be abandoned.
That said, one of the semifinals had to be decided via the doubles.
Second-seeded Korea had taken a 1-0 lead thanks to Choi Ji-Hee's (ITF 633) commanding, 7-6(5), 6-1 win against Chinese number two Huang Jia-Lu.
In the face-off between the pair of number ones, Sichuan's Li Yi-Hong incredibly whitewashed the highest ranked player in this year's qualifiers, Jang Su-Jeong (ITF 261), in less than 45 minutes, and doing so against a player who had not resembled anything close to dropping a set all week, let alone two bagel sets.
Li Yi-Hong then combined with Huang Jia-Lu to beat the Korean one-two of Jang Su-Jeong and Choi Ji-Hee, 6-0, 6-3, in the deciding doubles for a 2-1 win that set up a final rendezvous with top-seeded Japan, who took both singles against No. 3 seeds Australia.
Fourth-seeded Indonesia and Kazakhstan were tied at 1-1 before Aldila Sutjiadi and Voni Darlina combined to beat Kamila Kerimbayeva and Yelena Nemchen, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, to secure a place in the 5-6th Place Playoff with Hong Kong.
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Photo courtesy of Gary Au-Yeung