KARACHI, Aug 30: Asim Shafiq and Shahzad Khan gave the home crowd something to cheer about, when they won their opening matches of the fourth leg of men's ITF Satellite Circuit tennis championship that began on Monday afternoon on the hard courts of Karachi Gymkhana.
Asim beat the Australian Dane Fernandez 6-4, 6-3, while Shahzad swept past India's Varun Walia 6-1, 6-3. On the attack from the word go, Asim broke Dane's service thrice to take the first set 6-4. Although the Australian lad fought back, Asim always managed to stay ahead in the second, going on to win the set and match 6-3.
Shahzad on the other hand had a less difficult time against Varun. After winning the first set 6-1 with relative ease, the Pakistani had to fight a little harder in the next, before winning the set and match 6-3.
The other Australian on the circuit Adrian Venturi, also made his exit from the tournament, going down to Italy's Tommaso Cafferata 6-4, 6-3. But the big hitting Wasim Cheema went down to India's Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan in three hard fought out sets.
Jeevan playing mainly from the baseline, looked at ease winning the first set 6-2. But he was in for a rude shock when Wasif playing his natural attacking game took the next set 6-1, with some fine cross court smashes, which caught the Indian on the wrong foot time and again.
Both players matched each other stroke for stroke in the final set, but Jeevan after breaking Wasif's powerful service went on to win the match, grabbing the final set 6-4.
Four other Indians met their Waterloo in the first round at the hands of their respective opponents. Rahil Syed bowed out to counterpart Vijay Kannan 6-3, 6-3, while Vikas Punna lost to Morocco's Yassir Bouyahaya in an exciting match that went the full distance.
Yassir after taking the first set 6-1, looked rather bemused when Vikas levelled the scores 1-1, pinching the next set 7-5. But it was not to be Vikas' day. Although he fought back tooth and nail for every earned point, Vikas finally surrendered the match losing the deciding set 5-7.
Dmitry Ivanov, the only player from Uzbekistan contesting in this tournament made it through to the next round, but not before breaking into a sweat against Shuts Singh. The young Indian star won the opening set 6-4 only to lose the next 7-6, after a tiebreaker. With the scores levelled at 1-1, Dmitry playing with a lot more confidence wrapped up the final set and match 6-2.
Kamil Filali gave the Moroccans a 100 percent record when he too made it through to the second round after ending the pretensions of India's Gurmehar Singh 6-3, 6-0. Twenty four players made it through to the last leg of this tournament with nine of the 10 countries participating.
India led the band wagon with eight players (Vijay Kannan, Rahil Syed, Jeevan Nudenchezhman, Gurmehar Singh, Varun Walia, Vivek Shokeen, Ashutosh Singh and Vikkas Puna, followed by Pakistan with five (top seed Aqeel Khan, Nomi Qamar, Asim Shafiq, Wasif Cheema and Shahzad Khan. Italy has three players (Tommaso Cafferata, Tommoso Sanna and Enrico Wallenfeld.
Morocco has two players in the contest,(Kamil Filali and Yasir Bouyaha), two from Australia (Adrian Venturi and Dane Fernandez, with USA (Mirko Pehar), Korea (Cheong-Eui Kim) and Japan (Toshiaki Sakai) with one representative each in the men's singles.
The Austrian player failed to make it through to the final draw and has gone home. In the Men's doubles consisting of 16 players, India has two new players in Arindam Datta and Jaco Mathew, while Japan has one in Atsufumi Yoshikawa. On Tuesday the top eight players will be seen in action with the matches starting at 10.00 a.m., followed by four doubles matches.
FOLLOWING WERE THE RESULTS:
Vijay Kannan (India) beat Rahil Syed (India) 6-3, 6-3. Shahzad Khan (Pakistan) Beat Varun Walia (India) 6-1, 6-3. Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (India) beat Wasif Cheema (Pakistan) 6-2, 1-6, 6-4. Yassir Bouyahaya (Morocco) beat Vikas Punna (India) 6-1, 5-7, 7-5.Tommaso Cafferata (Italy) beat Adrian Venturi (Australia) 6-4, 6-3. Asim Shafiq (Pakistan) beat Dane Fernandez (Australia) 6-4, 6-3. Kamil Filali (Morocco) beat Gurmehar Singh (India) 6-0, 6-3. Dmitry Ivanov (Uzbekistan) beat Ashutosh Singh (India) 4-6, 7-6, 6-2.
Line-up for Tuesday's matches.
At 10.00 a.m. Top seed Aqeel Khan (Pakistan) v/s Tommaso Cafferata (Italy). Fifth seed Tommaso Sanna (Italy) v/s Kamil Filali (Morocco). Third seed Mirko Pehar (USA) v/s Asim Shafiq (Pakistan). Second seed Toshiaki Sakai (Japan) v/s Yassir Bouyahya (Morocco).
At 11.00 a.m. Seventh seed Nomi Qamar (Pakistan) v/s Vijay Kannan (India). Eight seed Cheong-Eui Kim (Korea) v/s Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (India). Fourth seed Vivek Shokeen (India) v/s Shahzad Khan (Pakistan), Sixth seed Enrico Wallenfeld (Italy) v/s Dmity Ivanov (Uzbekistan).
Men's Doubles:
At 12-30 p.m. Tommasco Cafferata and Tommasco Sanna (Italy) v/s Jalil Khan and Asim Shafiq (Pakistan).
At 2.00 p.m. Top seeds Mirko Pehar (USA) and Toshiaki Sakai (Japan) v/s Arindam Datta and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (India). Second seeds Aqeel Khan (Pakistan) and Vijay Kannan (India) v/s Vikhas Punna and Ashutosh Singh (India). Yassir Bouyahya and Kamil Filali (Morocco) v/s Jaco Mathew and Atsufumi Youshiawa (Japan).