After more than a decade of competing together in ATP World Tour doubles events, Thai twins Sanchai Ratiwatana and Sonchat Ratiwatana found themselves battling against each other on Thursday at the BB&T Atlanta Open.
The Ratiwatana brothers didn't play together in Atlanta because their combined Emirates ATP Doubles Ranking would have left them outside the cut to make the Atlanta doubles draw. By playing with other players, though, both brothers were able to compete in main draw action.
Sanchai and John Millman moved into the semi-finals over Sonchat and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi 6-2, 6-4. The brothers had squared off only once before, at an ATP Challenger Tour event in Cremona in July 2011. Sanchai (w/Mektic) also came out on top in that match over Sonchat (w/Walter).
“It’s a good experience for me to spread out and play with someone like Aisam. It’s so hard to get in the ATP World Tour tournaments now with the (Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings) cutoff, so we need to team up with other players or we’ll be stuck playing Challengers forever,” said Sonchat. “We want to play the big tournaments, so we’ll try to get our ranking up and have good results so we can stay on the ATP World Tour together next year.”
Sanchai’s win on Thursday marked the first time a Ratiwatana brother has reached an ATP World Tour doubles semi-final since Chennai in January 2013. But they said it’s a moment they’ll still be able to share together.
“It was a good feeling playing each other because it at least means one of us will be in the semi-finals,” said Sanchai. “We talked before the match and said we’re going to give 100 per cent. We just want to improve our games and the result doesn’t matter, so we were actually relaxed out there today.
“Aisam is like an older brother to us. We’ve been practising together and know each other very well,” he added. “I felt no pressure because Millman and I were the underdogs, and it was special for John to turn things around after a tough singles match (against Ryan Harrison).”
The Ratiwatana brothers moved back into the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings after racking up three ATP Challenger Tour doubles titles this year in Bangkok, Kyoto and Shenzhen, in addition to runner-up showings in Taipei and Busan. They’ve won 44 Challenger doubles titles together, more than any other players on tour, and have won at least one title every year since 2003.
But after dominating the Challenger doubles circuit, they’ve found that being back on the ATP World Tour during the past two weeks has already resulted in significant progress with their tennis.
“Most of the Challenger tournaments we play have singles players competing in doubles, but in tournaments like this, you have lots of doubles specialists and guys like Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan as the top seeds. But even the singles guys competing here hit a much heavier ball than we’re used to,” said Sanchai. “We’re in a little bit of the comfort zone in Challengers, but just practising with these singles guys and hitting with Millman before his matches will only help me with my game.”
With neither brother having won an ATP World Tour main draw match since July 2014 before arriving in Atlanta, they said they’re open to teaming up with other players again in the future. However, the occasional foray with another player is only for the common goal of reuniting as a full-time partnership on the ATP World Tour.