Chief Minister’s Cup: Indian aces cordon off rivals to girls’ singles crown

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KUCHING: Aces from India are now in command in the penultimate stage of the girls’ singles at 29th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup (I) ITF Junior Tennis Championship (Grade 1), with three of them advancing to today’s semi-finals.

The highest ranked player left in the contest, fifth seed Zeel Desai continued with her fine fettle to oust the girls’ singles champion of the 28th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup (II) ITF Junior Tennis Championship (Grade 3) from South Korea Park Sohyun in straight sets of 6-3, 6-2.

Zeel will play Japanese challenger Naho Sato, the 13th seed who dumped 10th seed Karolina Berankova of Czech Republic also in straight sets of 6-3, 6-1. Her compatriots ninth seed Mahak Jain and unseeded Mihika Yadav will be engaged in the other semi-final after they beat 16th seed Anri Nagata of Japan 7-5, 6-3 and Denisa Hindova of Czech Republic respectively.

In the girls’ doubles, unseeded pair Svenja Ochsner (Swit) and Emelie Schwarte (Ger) entered the final after scoring an upset win over top seeds Sofya Lansere and Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia 6-1, 1-6 (10-6) in the other semi-final.

They are to play the Japanese pair of Yuki Naito and Naho Sato, the second seeds, in the final (later yesterday) as Svenja and her coach had to catch an early morning flight back to Europe today to prepare for other big tournaments. Yuki-Naho were 7-5, 6-4 winners over fourth seeds Denisa Hindova and Karolina Berankova (Czech Rep). The campaign of the third seed in the boys’ singles Naoki Tajima of Japan came to an end yesterday as he lost to eighth seed Park Uisung (S Kor) when he retired after trailing 7-5, 4-3. Park will now play 15th seed Benard Bruno Nkomba in the last four after the Australian beat Japan’s Seita Watanabe 6-1, 7-6(2).

Another Australian Blake Ellis eased into the semi-finals after registering a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Jakub Paul of Switzerland and his semi-final opponent is 10th seed Tomas Machac of the Czech Republic who disposed of Sung Yohan of South Korea 6-3, 6-1.

Tomas is also in the running for the boys’ doubles crown after sending compatriots and second seeds Ondrej Styler-Michael Vrbensky packing 3-6, 7-5 (10-3) with his partner from Australia James Kent Trotter.

The other finalists are fifth seeds Blake Ellis (Aust) and Finn Reynolds (NZ) who also took three sets to subdue third seeds Park Uisung (South Korea) and Constantin Bittoun Kouzmine (France) 5-7, 6-3 (10-6).