LAHORE: Top seed Aqeel Khan won his second consecutive match on the second day of the Sapphire Open National Tennis Championships at the Punjab Lawn Tennis Association here on Tuesday.

Aqeel was on song as he gave no room to his opponent little-known Usman Rafiq in a 6-1, 6-1 win.

The struggling Usman could only hold his serve in the fifth game but it was too late, as Aqeel held his serve in the next game and then again broke the rival’s serve to win the first set. Aqeel wasn’t bothered too much in the second set either.

Heera Ashiq, Muzamil Murtaza, Mohammad Abid, Yousaf Khalil, Shoaib Khan and Mudassar Murtaza also won their men’s singles matches to move forward.

Results:

Men’s singles (group stage):

Group ‘A’: Aqeel Khan bt Usman Rafiq 6-1, 6-1; Heera Ashiq bt Ahmed Babar 6-3, 6-4.

Group ‘B’: Muzammil Murtaza bt Huzaifa Abdul Rehman 6-4, 6-3.

Group ‘C’: Mohammad Abid bt Hassan Riaz 6-1, 6-0; Yousaf Khalil bt Imran Bhatti 7-6, 6-2.

Group ‘D’: Shoaib Khan bt Abdullah Adnan 6-2, 6-3; Mudassar Murtaza beat Ijaz Khan 6-2, 6-1.

Boys’ Under-14 singles (first round): Xeerak Mustafa bt Harris Bajwa 4-1, 4-0; Omar Jawad bt Abu bakar Khalil 4-2, 4-2; Taimoor Khan bt Eesa Fahad 4-0, 4-0; Abdullah Sajjad Wahla bt Inam Bari 4-0, 4-0; Sohaan Noor bt Muhammad Mustafa 5-3,4-2.

Boys’ Under-16 singles (first round): Husnain Ali Rizwan bt M.Ibrahim Ashraf 6-4, 6-2; Abdullah Pirzada bt Hamza Rehmat 6-3, 6-4; Yafaat Nadim bt Abu Bakar Khalil 6-3, 6-1; Haider Ali Rizwan bt Hamza Jawad 6-2, 6-1; Shehryar Anees bt M. Sohaan Noor 6-1, 6-0; Kamran Khan bt Arman Kamran 6-1, 6-2.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2021