Top four seeds for boys and girls advance at SLTA courts

KUCHING (April 8): All the top seeds of the 44th Premier Sarawak Cup (I) ITF World Junior Tour J300 Kuching will see on Wednesday as the competition enters its crucial stage at the SLTA Centre.

In the boys’ section, top seed Hyu Kawanishi of Japan will proceed to the second round after receiving a first-round bye. He is joined by second seed Daniel Jovanovski (Australia), third seed Marat Salbiev (Russia) and fourth seed Arnav Paparkar (India), all of whom also received byes.

Facing Kawanishi will be India’s Samarth Sahita, who defeated Qiu Mingwei (China) 7-6, 7-6 in the first round on Tuesday.

Other second round matches include Jovanovski playing against China’s Su Yiyuan who advanced after overcoming Shintaro Ogaki (Japan) 6-3, 6-7, 7-6.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Anna Pushkareva leads the girls’ singles as the top seed. She is joined in the top four by Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-Chen, Russia’s Anastasia Lizunova and Nancy Lee of the United States respectively.

In the second round Pushkareva will face Natsuski Irokawa (Japan) who qualified after defeating China’s Lan Xiran 6-3, 7-6. Yu-Chen will play Rei Miyamoto (Japan) who had eliminated Russia’s Tatyana Golovina 7-5, 6-4.

Malaysia’s sole competitor Daania Daniella Hazli’s journey ended in the first round after losing to China’s Shang Fangyu 3-6, 3-6.

Apart from singles, all the players are also playing in the doubles category paired up with their compatriots or from other countries. The week-long J300 event will reach its climax this weekend, with the doubles finals for both boys and girls on Saturday followed by the singles finals for both boys and girls on Sunday.