BANGKOK, Aug 16: Hometown favourite Danai Udomchoke gave Bangkok’s new National Tennis Stadium a fitting opening on Thursday by winning gold at the World University Games.

Danai, who had dropped only 11 games in five matches going into the final six of those in the semi final, had his hands full with South Korean An Jae-sung before prevailing 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8-6).

Both players required medical timeouts in the third set as Danai came from 5-2 down to force a tiebreaker in which he again had to rally from a three-point deficit to win a match that went over 2-1/2 hours.

The University Games provided a dry run for the new centre which seats 1,500, located in the Bangkok district of Muang Thong Thani. In October, the stadium will host the WTA’s Bangkok Open and the Asian Hopman Cup team event in November for which it will be expanded.

Still the small confines and large, rowdy crowd made for interesting tennis on Thursday – the Korean complained to the chair umpire several times about the noise and other disturbance created by the crowd. Admitting that he was suffering from back pain throughout the match, An later said through a translator that even though he tried to block out the crowd, “but at the important points, I became distracted.”

Meanwhile the exhausted winner, Danai, who had also battled through a painful leg injury throughout the match, grabbed a Thai flag and walked slowly around centre court. He was also rewarded a one-billion-baht ($31,000) bonus by the Thai government that is giving bonuses to all host nation gold medallists at the Games.

In the women’s final, No 3 seed Alisa Kleybanova of Russia beat fourth-seeded Margit Ruutel of Estonia 6-1, 6-2 for the gold. The match started at midday in even hotter temperatures than those experienced earlier by the men.

Elsewhere at the Games on Thursday, Chinese diver Zhang Xinhua won the men’s 1-metre springboard and Ukraine took the men’s team sabre gold in fencing and rhythmic gymnastics, keeping them third on the medals table with 22 golds.

China swept all the table tennis singles golds – four Chinese players contested the men’s and women’s gold finals. They also bagged gold in judo, fencing and diving, where debutant Zhang Xinhua claimed the one-metre springboard title. The wins helped China pass Russia in the gold medal count for the first time in the Games. China have 27, Russia 25.

Japan who also had a successful day with two judo golds, beat the United States 9-1 in softball, ending the Americans’ chances of winning a medal at the Games. They now stand fourth in the overall medals tally with 17 golds.

Football finals on Friday will pit Ukraine against Italy for the men’s title and North Korea against Russia for the women’s title, while Canada will play the winners of the Taiwan and Japan softball match for gold.

In basketball on Thursday, Lithuania beat Canada to earn a place in the men’s finals against Serbia, who overturned Japan.

Montenegro will play Italy in the water polo finals after they both won their semi-finals.

Cho Tsung-lin of Taiwan led the men’s golf by one shot after the third round while Danielle McVeigh of Ireland was ahead in the women’s competition by four.—AP

Medal standings