CM Cup tennis: More seeds dumped as Naoki, Zeel steam on as top guns
KUCHING: More seeded players tumbled in the third round of the 29th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup, leaving third seed Naoki Tajima of Japan and fifth seed Zeel Desai of India as the highest seeded players left in the boys’ singles and girls’ singles.
In yesterday’s third round encounter, Naoki was stretched to three sets before beating his compatriot Tasei Ichikawa 6- 2, 4- 6, 7- 5.
The ITF No 36 is joined by compatriot Seita Watanabe in the last eight after the latter defeated John Bryan Decasa Ortico of Philippines 6- 4, 6- 4.
Seita will next play in- form Benard Bruno Nkomba, the 15th seed of Australia while Naoki’s opponent is eighth seed Park Uisung of South Korea who beat Japan’s Ryuya Ata 6- 4, 6- 1 in another second round tie.
South Korean Sung Yohan continued his good run by scalping another seeded player Yin Bang Shuo, the 13th seed, of Taiwan 63, 2- 6, 7- 6(5) to set up a clash with 10th seed Tomas Machac of Czech Republic.
The other quarterfinal will be played between ninth seed Blake Ellis of Australia and unseeded Jakub Paul of Switzerland.
In the girls’ singles, fifth seed Zeel advanced to the quarterfinals af ter she dumped Serbia’s Draginja Vukovic 6- 3, 6-2 in the third round.
The Indian is next up against South Korean challenger Park Sohyun who defeated Oona Orpana 6- 3, 6-1.
Japan’s Anri Nagata slayed second seed Liang En Shuo 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-2 to book her quarterfinal ticket where she will meet ninth seed from India Mahak Jain after the latter beat South Korea’s Lee Eunhye 7- 6(3), 6- 0.
The other quarterfinalists are 13th seed Naho Sato (Jpn), 10th seed Karolina Berankova and 11th seed Denisa Hindova ( both Czech Republic) as well as unseeded Mihika Yadav ( India).
In the boys’ doubles. top seeds from Japan Shinji Hazawa and Naoki Tajima were sent packing by the Australian- Kiwi pair of Blake Ellis and Finn Reynolds who bounced back from one set 3- 6 down to win the next set 6- 4 and the tie-breaker 11- 9.
They now play Park Uisung (S Korea) and Constantin Bittoun Kouzmine ( Fra) in today’s semifinals.
The second seeds Ondrej Styler and Michael Verbensky from Czech Republic were also upstaged by eighth seeds Tomas Machac ( Czech Rep) and James Kent Trotter (Jpn) 6- 3, 5-7, 3-10.
Mahac-Trotter’s semi- final opponents are the Japanese pair of Taisei Ichikawa and Ryuki Matsuda who upset the sixth seeds Kody Pearson and Adam Walton of Australia 2- 6, 6- 4, (10-7).