Lalitpur, February 16

Five Indian and three Chinese players advanced to the singles semi-finals, while three Indians and a Chinese teams made it to the finals in doubles categories in the Nepal ITF Juniors U-18 Circuit-II Tennis Championships today.

In girls’ singles, Vaidehi Chaudhari and Shivani Swarup Ingle of India entered the semi-finals along with Chinese players Yujiao Che and Mingqiao Yang. In the day’s quarter-final matches played at the Satdobato Tennis Complex, Chaudhari defeated fellow Indian Bhakti Shah 6-4, 6-4, while Ingle beat China’s Jing Yang. In other quarter-final matches, Che beat Thailand’s Punnin Kovapitukted 7-6(6), 6-3 and Yang defeated her teammate Na Dong 6-3, 1-6, 6-2.

In boys’ singles, Penjyu Lu of China beat Atharva Sharma of India 6-2, 6-1; Mritunjay Badola came from a set down to beat fellow Indian player Piyush Surendra Salekar 4-6, 6-2, 6-0; Theertha Shashank Macherla of India edged past Michal Wozniak of Poland 6-3, 7-5; and Aaryan Zaveri beat Kabir Manrai 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in all-India match to enter the semi-finals.

In girls’ doubles semi-final matches, Vaidehi Chaudhari and Shivani Swarup Ingle of India beat Chinese pair of Zongyu Li and Jing Yang 6-3, 6-2, while Yujiao Che and Jingyi Wang of China registered a 6-4, 0-6, 10-7 win over Punnin Kovapitukted of Thainald and Mio Kozaki of Japan.  In boys’ category, the Indian pairs of Aditya Iyer/Piyush S Salekar and Gunjan Jadhav/Atharva Sharma made it to the final after their opponents withdrew on medical grounds.