LAHORE, Oct 11: Ashiq Rasool laboured for three hours and 10 minutes to beat a spirited Jan Nisar Ahmad in three sets, to reserve berth in the boys’ singles semifinal of the ITF junior ranking tennis championship at the Punjab Tennis Association grass courts in Bagh-i-Jinnah Thursday.

With all three sets going to the tie-breaker, unseeded Ashiq won 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (2/7), 7-6 (7/5).

Unseeded Wasif Cheema caused an upset defeating fourth seed Mutib Pasha 6-4, 6-3, while Gulzeb Niazi caused another shock, by beating his third seeded younger brother Shahrukh 3-6, 6-4, 6-1. Top seed Shahzad Khan earned a facile win against unseeded Kumail S. Rizvi 6-3, 6-1 to move into the pre-finals.

In the best match of championship, Ashiq should curse himself for extending the match to the third set. He twice allowed Jan Nisar to catch up when he was on game and set point.

Having won the first set after a see saw encounter, Ashiq was leading 5-2 in the second set, but with service in hand made many unforced errors. Jan taking full advantage of the setbacks levelled the scores 6-6. In the tie break, Jan Nisar proved too strong and lost only two points the level the scores at 1-1.

In the third set, Ashiq came from behind to equal the scores at 3-3 and then took a 5-3 lead. But Jan caught up again at 5-5 and then 6-6, to put the decision on tie-breaker. Both were on even keel till 4-4 and then 5-5, before Ashiq won at 7-5.

In the third set, Ashiq Rasool broke Jan’s service in the 3rd, 5th, 9th and 10th games while Jan returned the compliment in the 6th, 10th and 12th games.

In another three-set quarter-final, the unseeded Gulzeb Niazi defeated his younger brother third seeded Shahrukh Niazi 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, after exhibiting bad temperament.

During the first set, when Shahrukh broke his first serve, Gulzeb struck his racquet on the ground in utter frustration and broke it. Gulzeb repeated the act during the second set breaking another racquet. The tournament chief referee Arif Husain Qureshi gave Gulzeb a stern warning and reprimanded him for court-violation.

In the first set both were neck and neck 3-3. From here onwards, Shahrukh did not lose any game to win at 6-3.

In the second set, Gulzeb staged a fine come back and won the remaining two sets with ease 6-4, 6-1 and entered the semi-finals.

Top  seed  Shahzad Khan  maintained  his  winning-spree outclassing unseeded Kumail Husain Rizvi 6-3, 6-1, while unseeded Wasif Cheema stunned fourth seeded Mutib Pasha in another one-sided quarter-final 6-4, 6-3.

In the girls’ singles quarter-final, Maira Rahim earned easy victory over Shafaq Rahim 6-2, 6-3. Top seeded Nida Rahim blasted Sanam Mustafa 6-0, 6-0, while Iram Arshad registered a 6-4, 6-3 win over Saira Zeb Babri.

In the girls’ doubles semi-final, sisters Maira Rahim and Nida, crushed Saira Zeb Babri and Shafaq Rahim 6-2, 6-0.

Iram Arshad and Saba Aziz made short work of Rabia Khan and Anza Waheed 6-1, 6-1.

The boys’ and girls’ semi-finals and girls’ doubles final will be held on Friday.

Meanwhile, the decision of foreign players of not taking part in the first ITF junior world ranking tennis championship held here from Oct 1 to 7, has improved the ranking of the Pakistani players.

According  to the latest ranking received here from ITF, the top seed Shahzad Khan who won the first championship last week has improved his world ranking from 847 to 479 while runners-up Salman Bashir now ranked at 586.

In the girls section, Nida Rahim and Maira Rahim improved their ranking from 637 to 522 and 639 to 587, respectively.

The second part of the tournament is in progress here and hopefully the Pakistani players would improve their ranking further.