MEET Austria’s latest tennis exports, the Klemenschits identical twin sisters, Daniela and Sandra.

The 19-year-olds concentrate on their doubles abilities after their qualification rounds in the singles. This year they very nearly made it to the semifinals of the main draw doubles championships at the $100,000 plus Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge.

In the quarter-finals they went down fighting to finalists Bahia Mouhtassine (Morocco) and Angelique Widjaja (Indonesia) 6-7 (4), 4-6 in a long drawn battle stretching over two hours late Thursday night.

What’s so special about Daniela and Sandara? It is generally not a common sight to see sisters teaming up on the circuit. The fact that they are identical makes it very interesting. and it is difficult for the spectator to identify them whether near or far.

We did not ask them the regular questions of whether they miss each other when not together or whether they have the same sort of habits or tastes, instead asked them about their game.

Here for the Habtoor, the Klemenschits have a traveling coach in Georg Reiter who helped us with some translation work as well during the short conversation in between a singles quarterfinal game on Friday.

The sisters were initiated into the game at six by their parents Paul and Edith in Salzburg.

“This is our first big ITF event. We have been regulars so far in the $10,000s and $25,000s,” Sandra who is younger by a few minutes during birth, said.

“The first proper tournament we entered was when we were 10, again at our parents’ initiation and encouragement,” Daniela said.

The twins train for more than four hours on an average daily. “If it’s a full-day workout then it goes beyond five hours taking physical fitness, road running and other things into account,” coach Reiter said.

From here, the twins go on to Croatia followed by China or Italy for ITF sanctioned events.

“We want to take part in as many tournaments as possible but what’s preventing us from doing this is the lack of funds. We are not from a rich family and sponsors are a must for us. The top three or four manage backing to some extend but we have to struggle. There is noone coming forward despite Austria doing well in tennis over the years,” said Daniela and Sandra.

At present the twins are ranked five and six in singles and second in doubles in Austria and have improved in the paired events on the world stage to below 400. They entered the Habtoor with a 442 rating which must have improved from the points collected here.

On their favourite tennis player Daniela and Sandra were spontaneous in their reply - “Navratilova”.

Sandra plays left handed and Daniela right. This is itself is confusing to the opponents and it may not be a long time before we hear more of these ever smiling blondes on the world stage.

“For this year we would look forward to qualifying if we have enough points in world rankings. Things are very tough these days. Even to enter the qualification tournament for a major event or the Grand Slams we have to have some sort of an acceptable world listing,” Sandra said.