Second seeds clinch doubles title

Manama: Second seeds Cameron Silverman and Quinton Vega of the US comfortably beat top seeds Scott and Tallon Griekspoor from the Netherlands 6-0, 6-3 yesterday to clinch the men’s doubles title on the penultimate of the ITF Futures Tennis Tournament at the Bahrain Tennis Club in Juffair.

Earlier in semi-finals action, Final Silverman and Vega also won in straight sets against Italian duo Lorenzo Frigerio and Sasha Merzetti, while the Griekspoor duo brushed aside Bernd Kossler of Austria and Poland’s Mateusz Tercczynski 6-3, 6-2.

Meanwhile, the women’s doubles title was also decided with the unseeded pairing of Russian Anna Kalinskaya and Slovakian Tereza Mihalikova defeating the third seeds Katharina Hering of Germany and Belgium’s Kimberley Zimmermann 7-5, 6-3.

In the semi-finals, Hering and Zimmermann had beaten top seeds Fatma Al Nabhani of Oman and Jia-Jing Lu of China 6-2, 6-4, while Kalinskaya and Mihalikova easily overcame the challenge of second seeds Prema Bhambri of India and Kamila Kerimbayeva of Kazakhstan 6-0, 6-2.

In the men’s semi-finals top seed Griekspoor ranked 331 beat unseeded Cameron Silverman 6-2, 6-4 and third seeded German Yannick Maden ranked 547 knocked out compatriot and sixth seed Tobias Simon 6-4, 6-4. The men’s final is scheduled today at 5pm.

In the women’s semi-finals, seventh seed Anna Kalinskaya knocked out fifth seed Katharina Lehnert of the Philippines 6-2, 6-4 and sixth seeded Tereza Mihalikova upset third seeded Prema Bhambri ranked 401 in straight sets 6-2, 6-2. The women’s final is scheduled today at 3pm.

Both events are worth $10,000 each in prize money and are being played on hard courts.