Tamara marches through in ITF tennis

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Tamara Ermakova had twice the reason to celebrate yesterday in the Bahrain event of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour Juniors Calendar, currently being played at the Bahrain Tennis Federation courts in Isa Town.

The talented girls’ singles top seed advanced to her quarter-final stage and then—alongside playing partner Mori Grylak of Israel—made it through to the girls’ doubles semi-finals as the category’s number one seeds.

Tamara booked her spot in the girls’ singles round of eight following a hard-earned 6-0, 6-7 (1), 6-3 victory over Inbar Pony, also of Israel, in their second-round clash yesterday.

Tamara then teamed up with Mori to take a 6-2, 6-1 win against Zeynep Polat of Turkey and Rokaya Zaki of Egypt to make it to the girls’ doubles final four.

Mori was also twice a winner yesterday along with Tamara.

She too qualified for the girls’ singles quarter-finals as the third seed following a 6-2, 6-3 win against Katarina Curcic of Serbia.

Four others joined them in advancing, including second seed Yara Alhogbani of Saudi Arabia, sixth seed Leah Baroudi of Syria, and Isabell Esther Bilaus and Roni Baranes, both from Israel.

Yara outclassed Aleksandra Rozkalne of Latvia 6-1, 6-2, Leah defeated Eira Gabrielle Alegria of the Philippines 6-3, 6-2, Isabell ousted eighth seed Marta Podolak of Germany 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, and Roni beat fourth seed Presha Shanthamoorthi of India, who retired after losing the first set 1-6.

In the quarters, Tamara and Leah will face off while Mori and Isabell will go head-tohead.

Yara and Roni are still to learn of their opponents. Upset In the girls’ doubles, Tamara and Mori will next face the Israeli pairing of Shira Buhadana and Inbar Pony, who upset second-seeded Indians Presha and Vanshika Maria Vaiz Vasanth Vaiz 6-2, 6-1.

The other semi-final will be between Yara and British playing partner Annabel Hristova, who are second seeds, and fourth-seeded Roni and Ariel Avidan, the fourth seeds.

Yara and Annabel beat Leah and Aleksandra 6-4, 6-2, while Roni and Ariel battled back from a set down to edge past Laura Maser of Germany and Monique Wigoda of Israel 1-6, 6-2, 10-3.

Meanwhile, also triumphant yesterday were fourth seed Marko Milosavljevic from Serbia, eighth seed Tim Vaisman from Israel, Yannic Maser from Germany, and Itay Cohen from Israel.

They all made it through to the boys’ singles quarter-finals. Winning yesterday in the boys’ doubles and through to their semi-finals were fourth seeds Nikita Safonov and Samprit Sharma from India, Ethan Gottschalk from Australia and Yahan Zhang from China, Qataris Mashari Nawaf and Rashed Nawaf and the pairing of Milosavljevic and Vaisman.

They all advanced to the last four, where Gottschalk-Zhang will play Safonov-Sharma, and Milosavljevic-Vaisman will take on the Nawaf pair. The ongoing tournament is part of the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors Calendar.

It is a J5 level event, which is scheduled to continue until Sunday.

This week’s tournament will be followed by another J5 level event from 31 October to 5 November, and then a J4 event will take place from 7 to 13 November, both at the same venue.