Asian B1 Junior Tennis Championship: 7 Indians qualify for main draw

Seventh seed Sushant Dabas shocked top seed Fardeen Qamar while second-seeded Krish Patel outplayed Kushan Shah as seven Indians qualified for the main draw of the HCL Asian B1 Junior Tennis Championship, here on Sunday.

Sushant upset Fardeen 7-6(5), 6-3 while Krish emerged winner with a 6-3 6-3 scoreline.

Also making it to the main draw of the second edition of the event, organised by MSLTA and PMDTA, were Subash Paramasivam, Nishant Dabas, Archita Mahalwal, Priyanshi Bhandari and local girl Prerna Vichare.

Top-seeded Sevil Yuldashiva of Uzbekistan got past a fighting Bhakti Shah 6-4 6-4 to become the lone foreign qualifier.

The world no 61 in junior rankings, Dostanbek Tashbulatov of Kazakhstan and world no 49 Hong Yi Cody Wong of Hong Kong have been given the top seedings in the boys and girls events respectively.

Tashbulatov will take on wildcard Aryan Bhatia while Wong will clash with reigning under-16 national champion Gargi Pawar in the opening rounds.

Under-18 national champion and Pune lad Siddanth Banthia has been seeded fourth and will take on Malaysia's Christian Didier in the opening round.

A B1 category tournament is a closed event for the Asian continent and one of the most reputed tennis championships after the junior grand slams in the Under-18 category.

Players from 11 countries in the region -- China, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong-Kong, Malaysia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and India -- will compete in the tournament.

(With inputs from agencies.)