Unseeded Benjamin rolls into quarters
KUCHING: Benjamin Hannestead of Denmark continued with his impressive form this week at the 23rd Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup ( I ) ITF Junior Tennis Championship (Grade 1) when he claimed the scalp of another seeded player in the last 16 yesterday.
Af ter upstaging the boy’s singles fourth seed Kang Ku Keon of South Korea 6-1, 6- 0 in the second round on Wednesday, the unseeded Benjamin overcame 15th seed Lin Wei-De of Chinese Taipei 6- 3, 6-2.
The ITF No. 163 will next play seventh seed Zheng Weiqiang in today’s quarterfinals after the Chinese challenger defeated Ondrej Krstev of Czech Republic 6- 3, 6-2.
Four other seeds became third round casualties, with fi fth seed Chung Yunseong of South Korea falling 2- 6, 2- 6 to American Sameer Kumar, sixth seed Ly Nam Hoang of Vietnam losing 7- 6(4), 3- 6, 1- 6 to the ninth seed from Russia Bogdan Borbov while tenth seed Oh ChanYeong of South Korea was a 6-2, 6- 0 winner over eighth seeded Qiu Zhuoyang of China.
Tournament’s second seed Harry Bourchier from Australia also marched on to the last eight with a 6- 4, 7- 6(5) demolition of 13th seed from Uzbekistan Djurabeck Karimov and third seed Marc Polmans from Australia beat 14th seed from Thailand Teeradon Tortrakul 6- 3, 6-2.
However, the top seed Lee Duck Hee of South Korea had a little scare when he lost 5-7 in the fi rst set to Chinese Taipei’s Richard Lin Liang Yu before making a strong comeback to win the next two sets 6-2, 6- 4.
Lee’s next opponent is Bogdan Borbov while Harry will play Sameer Kumar in the quarterfi nals.
In the girl’s singles, Czech Republic’s Vendula Zovincova enjoyed a walkover from China’s Cao Siqi as the 10th seeded player withdrew due to a sprained ankle.
Vendula next plays third seed Katie Boulter of Great Britain in the quarterfi nals after the latter disposed of China’s Ye Qiu Yu, the 15th seed, 6- 3, 6- 3.
Yesterday’s matches were delayed due to a heavy downpour in the morning, with f i rst singles matches starting only at 3.15pm.