ISLAMABAD, Aug 30: Omer Babar will be the only home player to feature in Wednesday’s boys’ singles quarterfinals of the ITF International Junior tennis championship at the Islamabad Club.
Lucky to have drawn compatriot Usman Ijaz in the pre-quarters, Omer registered a 6-1, 6-3 victory while three other Pakistanis who were up against Indian players crashed out.
Sumit Prakash Gupta blew Nasir Mushtaq away with an impressive 6- 1, 6-0 victory to check into the last eight while Anshuman Ditta swept past Noumanul Haq 6-3, 6-1. Later unseeded Siddharth Hande, conqueror of sixth seed Yasir Khan on Monday, downed Tanveer Ashiq 6-4, 6-2.
Four other Indian players who also advanced to the quarterfinals were Rubal Shandilya, Aswin Vijayaragayan, Gursher Harika and Kinshuk Sharma.
The hosts enjoyed some good luck in the boys’ doubles pre- quarters with the pair of Omer Babar and Khurrum Nazir springing a surprise by knocking out fourth seeds Das Koushik and B. Vikram Reddy of India 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3.
The team of M. Ahmed Aslam and Danish Ahmed also went through as did the duo of Yasir Khan and Tanveer Ashiq.
In the girls singles pre-quarterfinals, Pakistan’s Anoosha Aslam was blanked 6-0, 6-0 by India’s Inayat Khosla.
Two other Indians — Mythri Prerana Appineni and Sanjana Kapoor also made the last eight grade.