KATHMANDU, Feb 16: The ongoing Nepal ITF Junior U-18 Tennis Tournament's Circuit Two being held at the Satdobato tennis court, Lalitpur, saw the the dominance of Indian players.
The boys' doubles final is set to be an all-Indian affair while the girls' doubles final also will feature Indian players. Similarly, three out of four semifinalists in boys' singles category are also Indian players.
The Indian pair of Aditya Iyer and Piyush S Salekar, and Gunjan Jadhav and Atharva Sharma enjoyed direct entries to the final after their opponents withdrew due to medical issue. The pairs of Ryo Lizumi of Japan and China's Guanglin, and another pair comprising of China's Pengyu Lu and Guangsen Wen couldn't continue the semifinal matches against the pair of Aditya and Piyush, and Gunjan and Atharva respectively.
In the girls' doubles semifinal played at Satdobato's tennis court, the Indian pair of Vaidehi Chaudhari and Shivani Swarup Ingle overcame the Chinese pair of Zongyu Li and Jing Yang 6-3, 6-2 and booked their places in the final. In another last four clash of the same event, the Chinese pair of Yujiao Che and Jingyi Wang defeated the pair of Thailand's Punnin Kovapitukted and Mio Kozaki of Japan 6-4, 0-6, 10-7 to make it to the final.
Similarly, in the boys event, India's Mritunjay Badola, Theertha Shashank Macherla and Aaryan Zaveri emerged victorious in the quarterfinal matches and made it to the last four while China's Penjyu Lu also booked his place in the semifinal from the same category.
Mritunjay registered a 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 win over Piyush S Salekar of the same nation, Theertha defeated Michal Wozniak of Poland 6-3, 7-5 and Aaryan beat Kabir Manrai 6-4, 1-6, 6-3. Likewise in another quarterfinal match, Penjyu overcame Atharva Sharma of India 6-2, 6-1.
Meanwhile in the girls' singles category, two participants each from India and China made it to the last four winning their respective matches. India's Shivani Swarup Ingle and Vaidehi Chaudhari registered 7-6, 6-3 and 6-4, 6-4 win over Jing Yang and Bhakti Shah respectively.
Similarly, Chinese duo Yujiao Che and Mingqiao Yang overcame Thailand's Punnin Kovapitukted and Na Dong 7-6, 6-3 and 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 respectively.
Disappointing day for Nepali players in junior tennis
