Ushna, Sara enter Pakistan Open Tennis semis

LAHORE: Ushna Suhail and Sara Mansoor carved out sensational victories against their respective opponents to quality for the semifinals of the 3rd BM Pakistan Open Tennis Championship 2018 being played here at the PLTA courts on Thursday.

Pakistan ladies national champion Ushna Suhail had no mercy for Mariam Mirza as she played some powerful shots and aces to crush her opponent by 6-0, 6-0 in the quarterfinal.Sara Mansoor fought well against Zoha Asim and outpaced her by 6-2, 6-4. Sara dominated right from the start and took the first set 6-2 but she had to struggle to win the second set 6-4. Asfa Shahbaz got walk over against former number one Sarah Mahboob, who came from Islamabad to take part in the championship but due to bad health, she withdrew from the event. The fourth and last quarterfinal between Noor Malik and Esha Jawad was postponed due to bad light and will be decided today (Friday).

In the men’s doubles quarterfinals, top seed Aqeel Khan and Shehzad Khan thrashed the pair of Talha Waheed and Sikandar Hayat 6-0, 6-0, Heera Ashiq/Abdaal Haider defeated Ahmad Ch/Abid Ali Akbar 6-3, 2-6, 10-8, Muzammil Murtaza/Mudassar Murtaza routed Shakir Ullah/Imran Bhatti 6-2, 6-2 and M Abid/Waqas Malik edged out Ejaz Khan/Yousaf Khan 2-6, 6-2, 10-7.

In the U-18 quarterfinals, M Shoaib toppled Parbhat Kumar 6-0, 7-5, Ahmad Kamil beat Aqib Hayat 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, Huzaifa Abdul Rehman trounced Abdullah Adnan 6-2, 6-2 and Saqib Hayat routed Shaeel Tahir 6-3, 6-3.

In U-14 semifinals, Semi Zeb defeated Uzair Khan 6-3, 7-5 and Hamid Israr beat Farman Shakeel 6-2, 6-4 to qualify for the finals. In U-12 semifinals, Hamza Roman outclassed Ahmad Nael 8-1 and Bilal thrashed Ehtesham Humayun 8-0 to make way to the finals. In the senior doubles 45 plus semifinals, Rashid Malik/Fayyaz Khan edged past Maj Adnan/Arif Feroze 6-2, 7-5 while the senior doubles 60 plus semifinals saw Rai Zahid Zafar/Dr Naveed overpowering Maj Saeed/Mobeen Malik 6-1, 6-3 and Asad Niaz/Imran Noon toppling M Babar/Brig Ghazanfar 6-1, 6-3.The men’s singles, doubles semifinals and ladies semifinals will be played on Friday.