Published on Published on November 15, 2006
Courtesy : Lerpong Amsa-ngiam
The Nation

Thailand's Danai Udomchoke was furious yesterday after being disqualified from the US$25,000 Kia International tournament in Caloundra, Australia, after a mix-up by officials, who claimed he turned up late for his match.

Danai was removed from the main draw where he was the top seed after officials claimed he did not make it to the venue in time for his match against Australian Nick Lindahl.

But Danai had a good reason for his late arrival in Australia and had notified officials in advance.

The Thai won his previous tournament in South Korea on Sunday and was assured by supervisor Ed Hadisty, who was in charge of the event Danai won, that an e-mail had been sent to the supervisor in Caloundra.

The e-mail explained that as Danai had made it into the final in South Korea, his arrival in Australia would be delayed and asked if he could play his first match on Wednesday, not Tuesday as originally scheduled.

This is common practice when a player makes a final and has to delay his arrival for the next tournament.

"I insisted several times that he [Hadisty] inform the tournament officials in Caloundra about my late arrival and he said 'don't worry'.

"But when I arrived, the another player had taken my place already,'' said an infuriated Danai. He was replaced by lucky loser Marinko Matsevic of Australia.

Danai said officials in Caloundra denied receiving any e-mails from their counterparts in South Korea and said nothing could be done because the match was already competed.

"I'm really pissed off because I travelled so far from Busan [South Korea] to here [Australia] only to find that I was unable to play the singles and I had a good draw,'' said Danai, who is still eligible to play in the doubles.

Danai and Lu Yen-hsun of Taiwan will play Taiwan's Ti Chen and American John Paul Fruterro today. Danai is playing his last two tournaments of the year in Australia with the aim of securing a place in the main draw of January's Australian Open.

He needs to accumulate as many points as possible from the two-week tour down under.

"This is very bad because I'm playing good tennis now and I don't need interruptions.

"So I have only one tourn-ament left next week and must reach at least the quarter-finals to gain enough points for Melbourne."