Hayden battles past Hwang to set up semifinal clash with Leach
Jones Hayden of Australia booked his place in the boys singles semifinals of the 40th Premier Sarawak Cup (J1) ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors J300 Kuching at the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) Tennis Centre yesterday.
The tournament’s top seed from Australia, who is ITF No. 9, survived a three-set battle with fifth seed Hwang Donghyun of South Korea.
He lost in the first set 1-6 but managed to crawl back into the game and beat Hwang 7-5, 6-4 in the next two sets to set up the semifinal clash with the fourth seed Jagger Leach of the US.
The American challenger had ousted 10th seed Cesar Cruz of Elsalvador 6-4, 6-0 in the other quarterfinal match.
Second seed Kim Jangjun of South Korea is also through the last four of the competition after he tamed the seventh seed Hugh Winter of Australia 4-6, 7-6(2), 6-2.
His next opponent is sixth seed Ivan Iutkin who disposed of Jake Dembo of Australia 6-2, 6-1.
In the girls singles quarterfinals, top seed Kristina Penickova of the US eased into the semifinals after beating Wei Zhang-Qian of China in straight sets of 6-0, 6-3.
She next faces Japanese challenger Reina Goto, the third seed after the latter got past eighth seed Doru Soke of Turkey 6-3, 6-1.
The other two semifinalists are Ada Kumru of Turkey and Kanon Sawashiro of Japan who beat Kamonwan Yodpetch of Thailand 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 and Xi Ni of China 3-6, 7-6
Meanwhile, in the boys doubles, third seeds Csear Cruz and Ivan Iutkin won their ticket to the final after a hard-fought 6-7(8), 6-1 (10-4) win over eighth seeds Stephane Pierre-Jo Kamendie (Canada) and Matteo Morazzi of Elsalvador.
Their final opponents are either top seeds Kim Jangjun (South Korea) and Hugh Winter (Australia) or fourth seeds Rethink Pranav Senthil Kumar and Kriish Tyagi of India.