December 22, 2006	Friday	Ziqa'ad 30, 1427

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LAHORE, Dec 21: All seeded players cruised into the semi-finals of the IC Open National ranking tennis championship at Bagh-i-Jinnah on Thursday. Top seed Aqeel Khan (Wapda) continued his unbeaten march, crushing Inam Gul (PAF) 6-3, 6-2. Aqeel, the most experienced player of the competition, took only 32 minutes to lead from start to finish.

His brother Jalil Khan (Wapda) also notched up an easy victory against veteran Rashid Malik 6-4, 6-2.

The 45-year-old Rashid, who registered an upset on Wednesday, defeating sixth seed Shafiq, however, failed to face up to the hard shots of young and energetic Jalil in the 38-minute clash.

Davis Cupper Asim Shafik (ABL) made little effort to end the winning run of national junior champion Yasir Khan. Asim won 6-1, 6-4 in 30 minutes.

Lanky Shahzad Khan ousted a young but spirited Ahmed Aslam after nail-biting fight in the first set 7-6 (7), 6-0. Holding serves, both the contenders went into the tie-breaker in which the former proved too good to win the first set. But in the next, Ahmed failed to give fight as Shahzad raced to victory without dropping any game.

Five pre-quarterfinals were also decided in boys U-17.

In one of the toughest matches, Fahad Ali was stretched to full length by Nasir Mushtaq before winning 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.

The ladies events also started in which Sara Mansoor beat Adeba Afzal 6-0, 6-1 while Saba Aziz made short work of Howeeda 6-1, 6-1.

Results:

Men's singles:

Aqeel Khan bt Inam Gul 6-3, 6-2; Shahzad Khan bt Ahmed Aslam 7-6 (7), 6-0; Asim Shafik bt Yasir Khan 6-1, 6-4; Jalil Khan bt Rashid Malik 6-4, 6-2.

Boys U-17 (pre-quarterfinals):

Ahmed Aslam bt Heera Ashiq 7-5, 6-0; Omer Baber bt Hamza Aftab 6-1, 6-0; Khurram Nazir bt Hidayat Ullah 6-1, 6-1; Abid Ali bt Shan Bukhari 6-2, 6-1; Fahad Ali bt Nasir Mushtaq 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.

Ladies' singles (1st round):

Sara Mansoor bt Adeba Afzal 6-0, 6-1; Saba Aziz bt Howeeda 6-1, 6-1.

Girls's singles U-17 (1st round):

Natasha Afridi bt Unsha Babar 6-0, 6-0; Mereen Izhar bt Howeeda 6-4, 6-3; Ushna Sohail bt Adeeba Afzal 6-1, 6-0.

Girls U-13:

Ushna Sohail bt Aliya Hai 8-0; Mehreen Izhar bt Mehak Khokhar 8-2.

Seniors-40 plus doubles (1st round):

Inam-ul-Haq-Khawaja Masroor bt Babar-Ashiq 6-2, 7-5; Rashid Malik-Hameed-ul-Haq bt Farrukh-Azim Tiwana 6-3, 6-3; Khalid Siddique-Asif Feroz bt Omer Qureshi-Yasir 6-1, 6-1.