CHARLES Barry of Ireland led four qualifiers into the Boys’ Singles Main Draw in the ninth Bahrain ITF Juniors Tennis Championship at Bahrain Tennis Club.
Also making it through were Prasanna Bagade of India, as well as Joe Leather and Ali Habib, both from Great Britain.
Action in the Main Draw begins today at the BTC premises in Juffair. Matches will be played from 9am onwards.
Barry booked his ticket following a hard-earned three-set victory Briton Luka Petrovic.
Top-seeded Barry gave up the first set but battled back well in the second to force the decisive third. He eventually closed the match out 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to march on.
Bagade joined Barry after upsetting second seed Tomac in straight sets 6-3, 6-2; while Leather enjoyed just as comfortable a win in his match against Youssef Baccouche of France, whom he beat 6-1, 6-0.
Habib clinched the final qualifying spot but needed to go three sets against American Ty Switzer. Habib shrugged off some early jitters to rally for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory.
Heading the 32-player Boys’ Singles main draw is number one seed Adham Gaber of Egypt.
The other seeded players are defending champion Viktor Jovic of Slovenia, Alexandros Roumpis of Greece, and Siddharth Thakran, Mann Shah, Srivatsa Ratakonda, Aaryan Zaveri and Sai Karteek Gantak, all of whom are from India.
There are four Bahrainis included in the Main Draw including Hassan Al Qattan, Elyas Addulnabi, Youssef Ashraf and Hamad Abdula’al.
In the Girls’ Singles Main Draw, defending champion Hala Khaled of Egypt is the top seed. Weronika Pociej of Poland is seed number two.
The other seeded players are Charlotte Navin-Weinstein, Annali Olivelle and Eloise Saraty of Great Britain, Trisha Vinod of India, Zehra Tekbas of Turkey, and Rafailia Nikoletta Fulop of Greece.
Nazley Nader, Maya Bseisu, Sophie De Boer all are representing Bahrain.
All are welcome to attend the matches at BTC.