Thai duo in stunning upset over Hopman Cup Champions

Tamarine Tanasugarn, left, and Paradorn Srichaphan celebrate their upset win over Jelena Dokic and Mark Philippoussis.

Don't look now, but Thailand is on the verge of storming world tennis yet again.

Participating in the 2000 Hopman Cup currently taking place in Australia, Thai duo Paradorn Srichaphan and Tamarine Tanasugarn created a stir when they upset defending champions Mark Philippoussis and Jelena Dokic of Australia 2-1 in their first round clash Tuesday.

Tamarine, ranked 72 in the world, opened the Thailand account with a decisive 6-1, 6-4 victory over rising star Dokic, who is ranked 29 places higher at 43. This came on the heels of Tamarine's thrashing of 24th-ranked Ai Sugiyama of Japan in the qualifiers on New Year's Day, where Thailand easily defeated Japan 2-1 to enter the main event.

"I just tried to focus and concentrate on my game and I think Jelena had a slower start today but it was almost a really, really close match," said Tamarine. "In the second set, she was coming well and it was lucky for me that I can probably hold serve that game. If I can't, it might have changed something."

Paradorn, who entered the top 100 at 99 this week, turned in a brave performance but was beaten 6-1, 6-4 by the 19th-ranked Philippoussis. The surprising stat of this match was that Paradorn outblasted the Scud 7-2 in aces despite the loss. However, after the match, Philippoussis had nothing but praise for Paradorn, who he said had a bright future ahead of him.

He may wish he hadn't said that. In the deciding match, Tamarine and Paradorn took advantage of some poor serving by Dokic to prevail 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 and complete the stunning upset. Paradorn, in particular, was in superb form, serving and blasting his way past the Australian duo as if they weren't there.

"In the mixed doubles, I thought that our plan was just to keep our serve and then we (would) try to break (Dokic) serving," said Paradorn. "We have the confidence now and we will just try our best and enjoy every match. That is why we won today because we were just playing and enjoying the match."

This is Thailand's debut at the Hopman Cup, and they are turning heads. They will face Austria and the Slovak Republic in the round-robin matches - and if they continue their torrid run, Thailand's first foray into world team competition may be golden.

Incidentally, the last team to win the Hopman Cup as qualifiers was the Slovak Republic in 1998 with Karol Kucera (ranked 25) and Karina Habsudova (ranked 29). But shockwaves will reverberate throughout the tennis world if Thailand even enters the final in its first attempt. Perhaps the teams are not fielding their best players (often the case with the Davis and Federation Cups as well). Most of the top players are concentrating on practicing before the Australian Open starts later this month - but Thailand's two stars are still the lowest-ranked of all the players in the main draw of the Hopman Cup. Don't put it past them though - Tamarine was ranked as high as 37 at the beginning of 1999 and has recently regained her old form, while Paradorn was just a speck in the distance at 350, and fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Thailand takes on the Slovak Republic next, with Paradorn meeting Kucera (the tournament's highest-ranked male at #17) and Tamarine meeting Henrieta Nagyova (ranked 34), before their final match against Austria, Paradorn to meet Stephan Koubek (46) and Tamarine to meet Barbara Schett, the tournament's highest-ranked woman at #8.

Could this be the beginning of a watershed year for Thai sports? It's certainly starting to look that way as far as Thailand's young tennis stars are concerned!