TOP seed Aaron Alcaraz Cortes yesterday led the remaining 14 seeds into the final qualifying round of the Bahrain ITF Futures Tennis Tournament at Bahrain Tennis Club (BTC) in Juffair.
Thirty-two competitors are vying for eight places in the main draw of the tournament starting tomorrow.
The event is being held under the patronage of Representative of His Majesty for Charity Work and Youth Affairs, president of Supreme Council for Youth and Sports and president of Bahrain Olympic Committee Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
The event carries a total cash prize of BD15,000, up from last year’s BD10,000, and precious ranking points.
Three Bahrainis have been awarded wild cards and they are Abdul Rehman Janahi, Hasan Abdulnabi and Yusuf Qaed while the fourth has been given to Mubarak Shannan Zayid of Qatar.
“In response, Qatar will be giving a wild card to a Bahraini player for the same event to be held in Doha,” said BTC manager Hamdi Jawad.
Today’s final qualifying round starts at 4pm, and the winners of the eight matches will progress into the main draw.
Yesterday’s results:
Aaron Alcaraz Cortes bt Georgly Pochay 6-4, 6-1; Amal Sultanbekov bt Jabor Mohammed Ali Mutawa 7-6 (6), 5-7, 6-1; Milos Sekulic bt Anshuman Gulia 6-0, 6-1; Mousa Shanan Zayed bt Atlymyrat Gurbanov 6-1, 6-1; Andrew Ruppli bt Kareem Abdulnabi 6-1, 6-1; Mohammed Abdel-Aziz bt Koonwar Gupta 6-1, 6-2; Vincent Van Den Honert bt Omar Alawadhi 6-3, 6-0; Sem Verbeek bt Gurbanberdi Gurbanberdiyev 6-0, 6-0; Shahbaaz Khan bt Fahad Al Janahi 6-0, 6-1; Alexander Braun bt Fariduni Hamid 6-4, 2-6, 6-4; Roy Sarut De Valk bt Eric Lavaud 6-1, 6-2; Saida’lo Saidkarimov bt Himansu Sagar 6-0, 6-2; Isa Mammetgulyyev bt Andrej Glvac 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; Jonathan Morr bt Yousif Dhaif 6-0, 6-0; Abdullah Maqdes bt Avneet Singh 6-0, 6-0; Shonigmatjon Shofayziyev bt Yuriy Roguskiy 6-3, 6-1.