Bahrain’s Faris, Shadi advance in ITF boys’ doubles play

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Bahraini tandem of Faris Al Toobli and Shadi Kallel advanced to the boys’ doubles quarter-finals yesterday in the Bahrain ITF Juniors 2023 tournament, which is currently being played at the Bahrain Tennis Federation (BTF) hard courts in Isa Town.

The competition is a J30 event that is part of the 2023 International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour Juniors, which features the world’s top tennis talents aged 13 to 18.

Faris and Shadi booked their place after beating Germany’s Elias Kaan Held and Egypt’s Ahmed Ibrahim 6-3, 7-5 in their first-round match.

They next face off with the second-seeded Indian pair of Samprit Sharma and Rushikesh Sonawane, who were 6-2, 6-3 winners against Georgii Arakelian and Daniil Karpukhin in another encounter in the opening stage.

Other contests in the last eight pit top seeds Venkat Rishi Batlanki of the US and Dev Kanbargimath of Romania against Sacha Fontanges of France and Idhant Kastwar of India; Spaniards Andres Pereiro Lopez and Victor Velasco Caballer with Turks Ozan Avanoglu and Mustafa Ege Topbas; and the Indian-Yemeni tandem of Kaushik Arunkumar and Ahmed Mohammed against third-seeded Turkish pair Bora Bakici and Cagan Efe Tufekci.

Elsewhere in the tournament yesterday, Shadi went down fighting to Turkish sixth seed Bora 1-6, 4-6 in the boys’ singles first round.

Others to win were fourth seed Rushikesh of India, fifth seed Josh Hinton of Great Britain, seventh seed Cagan, Mustafa, Andres and Nikita Gribyakin of Estonia.

In the girls’ singles, seventh seed Alina Sogomonyan defeated Bahrain’s Hajar Zaidan 6-0, 6-3; while in the girls’ doubles, Hajar and partner Saiyette Varadkar of India lost to Arina Malygina and Anastasia Myachina 2-6, 6-7 (3).

Other winning tandems in the girls’ doubles yesterday were Egyptian third seeds Sara Dessouky and Sosanne Malak, fourth seeds Ariana Gogulina and Adiya Omarbek of Kazakhstan; and Romania’s Simona Cucu and Austria’s Emily Lederer. Tournament action continues today at the BTF.

It is the second of three straight ITF events being hosted by the Kingdom in succession.

The second is also a J30 event, while the third, a J60 competition, will begin on 13 November.