Rain affected play at the Thailand Open 2 in Hua Hin on Wednesday, but it did not prevent Germany’s Laura Siegemund from making history with a triumphant upset win over No 5 seed Wang Xiyu from China, 7-6(3) 4-6 7-6(1), that took 4 hours and 9 minutes to complete, the 4th-longest match of the Open Era.
The physical conditions were tough. In the first set I felt it wasn’t that hot, but in the second and third sets it got really hot, and we had longer rallies. She’s a great young player. She found good solutions to keep putting me into longer rallies, and that made it harder. Laura Siegemund
The 36-year-old German’s win, which was the first to break the 4-hour mark since Italy’s Francesca Schiavone defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova from Russia, 6-4 1-6 16-14, in 4 hours and 44 minutes in the 2011 Australian Open 4th-round, sent Siegemund into the quarter-finals.
Trailing 1-3 in the first set, Siegemund led 5-3 in the decider, before Wang won 3 games on the trot, but, from 5-6 down the German won 9 of the last 10 points, dominating the third-set tiebreak.
“It was really tough, because, first of all, the physical conditions were tough,” Siegemund said afterwards. “In the first set I felt it wasn’t that hot, but in the second and third sets it got really hot, and we had longer rallies.
“She’s a great young player. She found good solutions to keep putting me into longer rallies, and that made it harder. She sometimes played off-pace, where I needed to create the energy and play aggressive. But, overall, I’m really happy with how I endured, and how I lasted.
“I tried to feel the moment, feel what I need to make the opponent struggle. I think I did a good variation today. Maybe sometimes it was not aggressive enough, I wish to see more of that. But in this kind of match you will have ups and downs, and most likely the reason is physical. So to bounce back from that and stay mentally strong is important.”
Siegemund will have a much-needed day off before she faces either another Chinese, No 3 seed Wang Xinyu, or Spain’s Rebeka Masarova in the quarter-finals on Friday.
