Ratiwatanas ride hot form into Australian Open

Sonchat and Sanchai Ratiwatana will draw inspiration from their remarkable performance in India when they begin their Australian Open campaign tomorrow.

The twins kicked off the year in style by reaching the semi-finals in Chennai, upsetting the high-profile Leander Paes and Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France en route. They are the only Thais to make the main draw in Melbourne courtesy of their ranking - world No 67.

"It was a great boost to reach the semi-finals in our first tournament of the year," said Sanchai who, along with twin brother Sonchat, will play Mikhail Youzhny of Russia and Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine in the first round tomorrow.

"Youzhny is a singles player and has a good baseline game. For Stakhovsky, we played him in Chennai but he had a different partner. They will be tough to beat but we will give it our best shot,'' said elder brother Sanchai. The Thai duo's best Grand Slam result so far is a third-round berth at Wimbledon in 2010.

"Actually we are confident about our game, but winning or losing is another matter,'' added Ratiwatana.

Also competing in the doubles is Danai Udomchoke, who will team up with Taiwan's Jimmy Wang as wild-card holders. They will take on Colombia's Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in round one.

"Doubles is not easy as we will be playing guys who are specialists in the format. They always play together so they are more familiar with the doubles game than us," said Danai who, despite being better known as a singles player, won last year's Thailand Open doubles title with another Taiwanese, Lu Yen-hsun.

"We have to try to serve and return as well as we did in winning the Thailand Open last year," added Danai.

Tamarine Tanasugarn is the only Thai woman in this year's Australian Open doubles main draw. She and Poland's Alicja Rosolska face a tough first-round clash against last year's champion Maria Kirilenko of Russia and American Lisa Raymond, seeded third.

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