Noor upsets Mehvish in Sheheryar Tennis

LAHORE: Noor Malik of ZTBL stunned experienced Mehvish Chishti while Mehek Khokhar, Sarah Mehboob and Sara Mansoor carved out easy victories in the Sheheryar Malik Memorial Grass Courts Tennis Championship 2019 in the pre-quarterfinals played here at Punjab Tennis Academy on Wednesday.

In ladies singles, Noor Malik showed great display of ground strokes and outpaced experienced and former number one players Mahvish Chishti by 6-2, 6-4. In the first set, Noor remained dominant and aggressive to hold her service games with availing of chances to break Mehvish services with powerful forehands. She also hit some wonderful winners from the forehand side and won the first set by 6-2.

However, in the second set, Mehvish succeeded to break her opponent’s games at initial stage and was leading the set at 4-1. At this stage, Noor made a strong comeback and started winning crucial points consistently, which helped her first level the score at 4-4 and then took the next two games in a row to take the set by 6-4.

In other ladies singles pre-quarterfinals, Mehek Khokhar was in sublime form and proved too hot for Mariam Mirza as she fully prevailed over her opponent, thus won the match by 6-1, 6-1.

Pakistan’s one of the leading female tennis players Sara Mansoor took very little time to overwhelm her young opponent Shimza Durrab by 6-0, 6-1. Former No 1 player Sarah Mehboob outsmarted Maha Saeed 6-2, 6-0. Meerum Ch overpowered Tasmiya Hamid 6-2, 6-2, Asifa Shahbaz trounced Nida Akram 6-2, 6-1 and Aksa Akram beat Astafila Arif 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the next round.

All the seeded players, including Aqeel Khan, Abid Ali Akbar, Yasir Khan, squeezed into the men’s singles quarterfinals after carving out easy wins in the pre-quarterfinals. Aqeel Khan played exceptionally against Imran Bhatti and thumped him by 6-1, 6-1.

Mudassar Murtaza stopped high-flying ZTBL’s Rashid Malik, who earlier defeated 25-year-old Mian Bilal in the first, as Mudassar recoded an easy win of 6-2, (rtd) against Malik. Veteran Shehzad Khan overpowered Waqas Malik 6-0, 6-2, Yousaf Khan defeated Usman Rafiq 7-6, 6-1, Abid Ali Akbar downed Heera Ashiq 7-5, 6-2, Muzamil Murtaza beat Asad Ullah 6-3, 6-3, Yasir Khan had to struggle hard to beat Ahmad Babar 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 and M Abid beat Barkat Ullah 6-4, 6-4.

In boys u-18 pre-quarterfinals, Osama Khan defeated Shaeel Tahir 2-6, 6-4, 10-8, Abdullah Adnan beat Faizan Fayyaz 6-2, 7-5, Hasheesh Kumar beat Huzaifa Khan 4-6, 7-6, 10-6, Sami Zeb beat Bilal Asim 6-0, 6-3, Ahmed Kamil beat Zain Chouhdry 6-2, 6-2, Hamid Israr beat Ahmed Nail 6-2, 6-2 and Nouman Aftab Zaryab Khan 6-2, 6-2.

In 35 plus doubles category, pair of Pakistan men’s No 1 Aqeel Khan (Wapda) and Pakistan 40 plus doubles No 1 Talha Waheed (Gas and Oil Pakistan Ltd) outpaced the pair of Ashar Khan and M Shakeel 6-1, 6-1.