All the first round matches of the Australian Open Asia-Pacific Wild-Card Play-Offs were completed as two seeds fell in singles.
The eight first-round matches were played on Wednesday and Thursday on the five courts of the Zhuhai Hengqin International Tennis Centre in China.
South-Korean top seed Soon Woo Kwon defeated the former Australian Open boys’ doubles champion Lingxi Zhao 7-5 6-1 and he will face Indian 30 year-old Vishnu Vardhan, who fired 16 aces to win a tough battle 6-4 5-7 6-4 against fifth seed Tsung-Hua Yang from Taipei.
Third seed Yusuke Takahashi had a comfortable 6-1 6-1 victory on Chinese Wild-Card Zihao Xia, and he will next face fellow Japanese Hiroki Moriya, who ousted Sriram Balaji from India 7-5 6-0.
19 year-old Jurabek Karimov from Uzbekistan caused a notable upset as he eliminated Indian hope and 6th seed Sumit Nagal 7-5 6-4. On Friday he will play Chinese fourth seed Zhe Li, who defeated Japan’s Yosuke Watanuki 6-3 6-2.
In the lowest section of the draw, former tournament’s champion Ze Zhang outlasted Thailand’s Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul 7-5 6-4 and set an all-Chinese quarterfinal against Zhizhen Zhang, who beat Wild-Card Hao Wu 6-4 6-2.
In doubles, quarterfinals’ matches were already completed with the best 4 seeds advancing to the semifinals. The Ratiwatana brothers from Thailand will play against Toshihide Matsui from Japan and Chu-Huan Yi from Taipei, while Indian pair of Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan will face Jeevan Neduncheziyan from India and Cristoph Rungkat from Indonesia.
AWP, Zhuhai (CHN), First Round:
S.Kwon [1,KOR] def L.Zhao (CHN) 7-5 6-1
V.Vardhan (IND) def T.Yang [5,TPE] 6-4 5-7 6-4
Y.Takahashi [3,JPN] def Z.Xia (CHN) 6-1 6-1
H.Moriya [8,JPN] def N.Sriram Balaji (IND) 7-5 6-0
J.Karimov (UZB) def S.Nagal [6,IND] 7-5 6-4
Z.Li [4,CHN] def Y.Watanuki (JPN) 6-3 6-2
Zh.Zhang [7,CHN] def H.Wu (WC,CHN) 6-4 6-2
Z.Zhang [2,CHN] def W.Trongcharoenchaikul (WC,THA) 7-5 6-4
AWP, Zhuhai (CHN), Doubles Quarterfinals:
Sa.Ratiwatana/So.Ratiwatana [1,THA/THA] def C.Hsieh/T.Yang (TPE/TPE) 6-4 6-3
T.Matsui/C.Yi [4,JPN/TPE] def M.Gong/Z.Zhang (CHN/CHN) 4-6 6-3 10-4
S.Balaji/V.Vardhan [3,IND/IND] def Y.Du/Q.Gao (CHN/CHN) 6-4 6-2
J.Neduncheziyan/C.Rungkat [2,IND/INA] def H.Moriya/Y.Takahashi (JPN/JPN) 3-6 6-3 10-5
