Keshav Pathak/Pokhara Sports/ The ITF World Ranking U-18 Tennis Tour J-5 Circuit-2 organized by Kaski District Tennis Association has kicked off in Pokhara from Monday.
Nepali players have given a mixed performance in the match which started on Monday at the Pokhara Tennis Complex. In the first day’s game under Circuit 2, boys and girls have played 20 games for singles and 4 games for doubles. Nepal’s top seed Arav Samrat Hada and 2nd seed Saloni Tamang and Subhangi Laxmi Rana have emerged victorious in the singles.
Arav defeated Arya Bhattacharya of India 6-3, 6-4 in straight sets, Saloni defeated Sohni Sanjay Mohani of India 6-0, (6-7) and 6-1 in a tiebreaker while Subhangi defeated Mia Krsteva of Belgium by 4-6, 6-2, 6–3 in tiebreaker match. Out of the 20 singles matches held today, 16 Nepali players including 8 for girls and 8 for boys have been eliminated from the competition after losing their respective games.
Nepal’s Saugat BK lost with 6-0, 6-1 to eighth seed Emilio Ziolkowski of Sweden, Ayushman Ghale 6-0, 6-1 to 3rd seed Siddharth Lama of USA, Evyak Joshi 6-0, 6-1 to Chandan Shivraj of India, Ishan Gurung 6-0, 6-0 to Alexander Nodal of Denmark and the Prasiddha Moktan lost 6-0, 6-0 in straight sets.
On the boys’ side, India’s Hitesh Chauhan defeated Nepal’s Nishan Shrestha by 6-4, 6-3 in a competitive match to prevent him from advancing to the second round. Nepal’s Girvan Jung Thapa lost to Hungary’s 5th seed Laurent Gyori with 6-0, 6-0 in straight sets. In another match for the boys, Matthew Barrett of the United States lost his singles match 7-6 (3) and 6-3 to India’s Krish Tyagi in a tiebreaker.
Even for the girls, the first day’s game was not so exciting. Nepali player Adhya Poudel lost her match to India’s Diva Bhatia 6-0, 6-2 in straight sets. Raina Shah also lost to India’s Mehar Mishra 6-2, 6-4 in straight sets. Nepal’s Romika Buddhacharya lost to India’s Millee Chugh 6-1, 7-5 while Prasanna Moktan lost to India’s Hena Nagpal 6-0, 6-1.
In the girls’ singles, Nepal’s Shreya Bhattarai lost to Belgium’s Shanoj Bovy 6-0, 6-1 in straight sets, while Nepal’s Nimisha Dhakal lost to India’s Saumrita Verma 6-0, 6-0 in straight sets. Another Nepali player Sunira Thapa lost to India’s Niyati Kukreti 6-3, 6-0, and Ayesha Dolkar Gurung also lost to India’s 8th seed Tanushree Pandey 6-1, 6-1 in straight sets.
In the boys’ doubles, the duo of Jay Dutt of the USA and Aryan Giri of Nepal have won their game. They defeated the Nepali pair of Raj Bahadur Pradhan and Saksham Bikram Shah 7-6 (3), 6-3 in a super tie match. Nepal’s Prasiddha Moktan and Evyak Joshi were defeated 6-1, 6-1 by Russian Matev Gresner and India’s Nikhil Dusuza 6-1, 6-1 in straight sets.
88 players including boys and girls from 11 countries are participating in the week-long tournament.
