Girls doubles champions Yuki Naito and Naho Sato celebrating their achievement late Friday evening. — Photos by Chai Chang Yu
KUCHING: It’s an all-Indian girls singles final between fifth seed Zeel Desai and ninth seed Mahak Jain after the remaining non-Indian survivor Naho Sato was knocked out of the semi-finals of the 29th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup (I) ITF Junior Tennis Championship (Grade 1).
Facing Zeel, the 13th seed Japanese lost the first set 6-7 (5) but took the second set 6-2 before losing the tie-breaker 6-3.
The other semi-final saw Mahak ease to a 6-2, 6-2 win over unseeded compatriot Mihika Yadav.
Meanwhile, Australian challenger Benard Bruno Nkomba took another big step towards winning a title in Kuching when he outplayed eight seed Park Uisung from South Korea 6-2, 5-7, 6-0 in the boys semi-finals.
His opponent in the singles final is 10th seed Tomas Machac from Czech Republic who ousted ninth seed Blake Ellis of Australia 7-6(5), 6-2 in the other semi-final.
Mahac already won a trophy yesterday when he partnered James Kent Trotter of Australia to finish runners-up after losing 6-7, 3-6, 7-10 to third seeds Constantin Bittoun Kouzmine (France) and Park Uisung (South Korea) in the boys doubles final which lasted an hour and 50 minutes.
The girls doubles crown was claimed by the Japanese pair of Yuki Naito and Naho Sato after the second seeds warded off the challenge from Svenja Ochsner (Switzerland) and Emelie Schwarte (Germany) 7-6(5), 6-3.
Two finals – the boys singles and girls singles – will be played today starting at 9am.