Tamarine Tanasugarn reaches Pattaya Open final

Home favourite Tamarine Tanasugarn overpowered Kazakh Sesil Karatantcheva 6-2 6-0 on Saturday to reach the final of the $220,000 Pattaya Open.

Tamarine played solidly throughout, winning game after game with powerful forehands that forced woeful returns from Karatantcheva.

The American-born Thai will face either top seed and defending champion Vera Zvonareva of Russia or Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova in Sunday's final, the 10th of her 16-year professional career.                                           

With the home crowd behind her in the scorching heat, Tamarine, who at 32 is one of the oldest players on the tour, broke the 20-year-old Kazakh twice to open up a 4-0 lead in the first set.  

Karatantcheva put up a lot of resistance in the one hour, 20-minute match but struggled with her serves and paid the price for repeatedly squandering her chances to break her opponent. 

"The match wasn't as easy as it seemed from the score, especially being held six or seven times at deuce on second set. I just tried to take each game at a time," Tamarine told reporters.

"I'm very satisfied and happy to get it over with quickly. Tomorrow, I have nothing to lose."