Lahore - Ushna Suhail and Sara Mansoor carved out sensational victories against their respective opponents to book berth in the semifinals of the 3rd EBM Pakistan Open Tennis Championship 2018 being played here at the PLTA courts.
In the ladies quarterfinals played here on Thursday, Sara Mansoor fought well against Zoha Asim and outpaced her by 6-2, 6-4. Sara dominated right from the word go and prevailed over her opponent by taking the first set 6-2. But she had to struggle hard to win the second set 6-4. Pakistan ladies national champion Ushna Suhail had no mercy for Mariam Mirza as the champion displayed some quality tennis skills and techniques to outclassed her opponent in both the sets, winning them by 6-0, 6-0.
Asfa Shahbaz got walk over against former number one Sarah Mahboob, who came from Islamabad to feature in the championship but due to bad health, she withdrew. The fourth and last quarterfinal between Noor Malik and Esha Jawad was postponed due to bad light and will be decided today (Friday).
In the men’s doubles quarterfinals, top seed Aqeel Khan and Shehzad Khan thrashed the pair of Talha Waheed and Sikandar Hayat 6-0, 6-0. Heera Ashiq/Abdaal Haider defeated Ahmad Chaudhry/Abid Ali Akbar 6-3, 2-6, 10-8, Muzamil Murtaza/Mudassar Murtaza routed Shakir Ullah/Imran Bhatti 6-2, 6-2 and M Abid/Waqas Malik edged out Ejaz Khan/Yousaf Khan 2-6, 6-2, 10-7.
In the U-18 quarterfinals, M Shoaib toppled Parbhat Kumar 6-0, 7-5, Ahmad Kamil beat Aqib Hayat 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, Huzaifa Abdul Rehman trounced Abdullah Adnan 6-2, 6-2 and Saqib Hayat routed Shaeel Tahir 6-3, 6-3. In U-14 semifinals, Semi Zeb defeated Uzair Khan 6-3, 7-5 and Hamid Israr beat Farman Shakeel 6-2, 6-4 to qualify for the finals. In U-12 semifinals, Hamza Roman outclassed Ahmad Nael 8-1 and Bilal Asim thrashed Ehtesham Humayun 8-0 to make way to the finals.
In the senior doubles 45 plus semifinals, Rashid Malik/Fayyaz Khan edged past Maj Adnan/Arif Feroze 6-2, 7-5 while the senior doubles 60 plus semifinals saw Rai Zahid Zafar/Dr Naveed overpowering Maj Saeed/Mobeen Malik 6-1, 6-3 and Asad Niaz/Imran Noon toppling M Babar/Brig Ghazanfar 6-1, 6-3.
The men’s singles, doubles semifinals and ladies singles semifinals will be contested today (Friday) here at the PLTA tennis courts.