Nael Causes Upset To Advance To ITF World Junior Tennis C’ship Final

Fourth seed Nael Ahmed Qureshi of Pakistan caused a major upset when he overpowered top seed Tadpong Kamonpanyakorn of Thailand in the semifinal of the ITF Pakistan J30 World Junior Tennis Championships-II 2023 at the PTF-SDA Tennis Complex, Islamabad on Thursday

ISLAMABAD, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Nov, 2023) Fourth seed Nael Ahmed Qureshi of Pakistan caused a major upset when he overpowered top seed Tadpong Kamonpanyakorn of Thailand in the semifinal of the ITF Pakistan J30 World Junior Tennis Championships-II 2023 at the PTF-SDA Tennis Complex, Islamabad on Thursday.

Nael Qureshi, a student of Westminster school and upcoming talented youngster from Ace Tennis academy, fashioned the exciting win in the three-set thriller. He won the toss and elected to serve first, starting the proceedings on a positive note.

He continued the pace of the game with the exchange of good rallies and cross-court short till 3 games all. In the seventh game, he made some unforced errors and hit the ball into the net, and lost the game by hitting a double fault.

At this stage, Tadpong built up his winning lead 5-4 and tried to finish the set in the 9th game but failed to convert and ultimately grabbed the 10th game to win the set at 6-4.

In the second set, Qureshi changed the game plan by playing some attacking game according to the situation. He built up a winning lead of 4-2 by breaking the 2nd and 6th game of Tadapong.

After losing the 7th game, he played extraordinary tennis and broke back the 8th game and held the 9th game in his favour, taking the 2nd set at 6-3, levelling the match 1 set all. In the final set, both the players exhibited a high standard of tennis.

Tadapong tried his best and succeeded to break the 4th game of Nael to build up the lead 3-1. But Nael bounced back, changing the pace and strategy of the game plan, playing his best tennis by hitting excellent ground stokes down the line and cross-court. He broke the 5th, 7th and 9th game of Tadpong and qualified for the final of the ITF Pakistan J30 World Junior Tennis Championships-II.  The match lasted for one hour and 40 minutes.

In the final, Nael Qureshi will face Yoshito Oda of Japan.

The complete results are as under:

Boys Singles Semifinals:

Ahmed Nael Qureshi(PAK) bt Kamonpanyakorn Thadapong(THA) 4-6,6-3,6-3; Toki Adachi (JPN) bt Zaidh Zehar (SRI) 6-1,6-2

Girls Singles Semifinals:

Sajidda Razick (SRI) bt Anastasia Melnikova (RUS) 6-2,6-2; Victoria Sedova (RUS) bt Bahar Kilic (TUR) 6-1,6-2

Boys Doubles Semifinals:

Toki Adachi (JPN) / Yoshito ODA(JPN) bt Aahil Kalil(SR) / Zaidh Zihar (SRI) 6-1,7-6(4); Thanathip Poti (THA) / Kamonpanyakorn Thadapong(THA) bt M.Salar Khan / M. Hamza Aasim (PAK) 2-6,6-4(10-4)

Girls Double Semifinals:

Victoria Sedova(RUS) / Anastasia Melnikova(RSU) bt Fatima Ali Raja / Zainab Ali Raja(PAK) 6-0,6-0;Bihar Kilic(TUR) / Saajida Razick(SRI) bt Venuli Senari (SR)/ Srimuk(THA) bt 6-1,6-1

The finals will take place on Friday.