ISLAMABAD - Ivan Penev of Bulgaria annexed the boy’s singles title of the ITF Pakistan Junior Tennis Championship 2018 by beating highly spirited Huzaifa Abdul Rehman of Pakistan in a well contested three sets final, played here at Senator Dilawar Abbas PTF Complex on Saturday.
The entire arena was jam-packed, as entire PTF management including the President Salim Saifullah Khan, Subah-e-Nau Chairperson Shahid Farooq, diplomats and tennis lovers were witnessing one of the most memorable and keenly-contested final on offer.
It was local lad Huzaifa, who was enjoying overwhelming crowd support and the local players were highly vocal and Huzaifa responded in true style by completely outclassing Penev and raced on to take the first set 6-2 in just 22 minutes after breaking 6th and 8th games serves of his opponent. The real battle started in the second set, as Penev managed to break 4th game of Huzaifa to take 3-1 lead. Huazifa bounced back to make it 2-3 and then hold onto his serve while Penev also holds his serve. It was 4-4 at that moment when Huzaifa committed too many mistakes, which allowed Penev to break 9th serve. Huzaifa had the chance to break 10th game as he twice had advantage but failed and Penev finally managed to take the set 6-4 in 35 minutes. In the third set, both players were involved in long rallies and none of them was ready to concede. The score went up to 3-3 as both the players held their respective serveice, Penev broke the seventh game of Huzaifa and won the final set 6-4. The final lasted for one hour and 53 minutes.
Mina Toglukdemir & Sara Yigin bagged the girls doubles title by beating Melina Mehrani & Meshkatulzahra Safi from Iran in another explosive three set final 6-2, 6-7 (3) and 10-8.