Krstev-Rikl pair advances to double’s semis

Manama : Unseeded pairing Ondrej Krstev and Patrik Rikl marched on to the Men’s Doubles semi-finals yesterday, as did top seeds Valeria Bhunu and Emily Webley-Smith in the Women’s Doubles, highlighting an exciting third day of action in the Bahrain ITF Futures Tennis Tournament at Bahrain Tennis Club (BTC).

Meanwhile, giant-killer Thomas Colautti of Great Britain continued his winning ways to move on with seven others into the Men’s Singles quarter-finals. Quirine Lamoine of the Netherlands did the same in the Women’s Singles, leading all remaining seeded players into their last eight with fine wins yesterday.

After taking down the Men’s Doubles top seeds on opening night on Monday, Czech tandem Krstev and Rikl showed it was no fluke as they defeated the Swedish-Czech pair of Niklas Johansson and Tadeas Paroulek 6-2, 6-2.

They now hope to continue their fine run in Bahrain when they face off with the fourth- seeded American duo of Robert Galloway and Anderson Reed. Galloway and Reed were able to get some rest today as they booked their final four berth with a walkover win.

The second seeded Czech pair of Marek Gengel and Dominik Kellovsky also powered through, and they will next meet the Italian-Swiss duo of Claudio Fortuna and Riccardo Maiga. They upset third seeds Francis Casey Alcantara from the Philippines and Pak Long Yeung from Hong Kong.

In the Women’s Doubles, the top-seeded pair of Bhunu from Zimbabwe and Webley-Smith of Great Britain cruised into the semi-finals where they will next meet the Swedish-Russian two some of Rebecca Gustafson and Varvara Kuznetsova.

Second seeds Kanika Vaidya and Zeel Desai of India meet Marian Jade Capadocia of the Philippines and Fatma Al Nabhani of Oman in the other semi-final.

In the Men’s Singles, Colautti was again a winner, this time against Milen Ianakiev of Germany.

Only three seeded players remained amongst the men following Wednesday’s action. They include third seed Jelle Sels of the Netherlands, fifth seed Lukas Ollert of Germany and number seven seed Patrik Rikl of the Czech Republic. 

Others to go through were Dominik Kellovsky of the Czech Republic, Vladyslav Orlov of Ukraine, Riccardo Maiga of Switzerland and American qualifier Galloway.

In the Women’s Singles, all ladies ranked one through eighth booked a berth in the semi- finals. 

They included top-seeded Lamoine, second seed Ana Veselinovic of Montenegro, third seed Nastja Kolar of Slovenia, fourth seed Tereza Mihalikova of Slovakia, fifth seed Fatma Al Nabhani of Oman, seventh seed Emily Webley-Smith of Great Britain, eighth seed Kanika Vaidya of India and unseeded Viktoria Morvayova of Slovakia, who beat sixth seed Zeel Desai of India the night before.