Qaed marches through in men’s singles tennis

Bahrain’s Yusuf Qaed advanced to the men’s singles Round of 16 yesterday following a straight sets victory over Yaqoub Mohammed of Kuwait on the opening day of the tennis competition at the third GCC Games. Qaed is next set to take on Saud Alhogbani of Saudi Arabia today at 4pm.

Hasan Abdulreda is also in the same stage. He will be taking on Bader Antar of Kuwait in another match at the same time. Also competing in yesterday’s schedule, Bahrainis Youssef Ashraf and Jaber Abdula’al could not advance. They lost their respective Round of 32 matches, with Ashraf succumbing to Qatari Mousa Shannan 1-6, 6-3, 2-6 and Abdula’al losting to Isa Shannan, also of Qatar, 3-6, 0-6. All four Bahraini players will also be in action in the men’s doubles.

Qaed and Abdulreda will be teaming up to take on Mousa Shannan and Issa Shannan of Qatar, while the pair of Ashraf and Abdul’al will take on the Saudi tandem of Omar Ahmad and Abdullah Alfaraj. Also yesterday, the men’s table tennis tournament got underway and the Bahrainis had mixed results. They first beat Kuwait 3-2, with Mohamed Saleh, Alyas Alyassi, and Rashed Rashed each winning a match. Saleh first beat Marzooq Al Rashidi 3-0 (12-10, 14-12, 12-10).

Alyassi then outplayed Jaber Albalhan 3-0 (11-5, 12-10, 11- 9), before Rashed defeated Al Rashidi in the last match 3-1 (12-14, 11-5, 12-10, 11-6). Saleh and Rashed had also lost in their other matches to their Kuwaiti counterparts.