TENNIS – Top seed Ilia Simakin from Russia advanced to the men’s singles second round yesterday in the second Bahrain Men’s ITF World Tennis M25 Manama tournament, which is being played at the Public Security Officers Club in Gudaibiya.
Simakin defeated German qualifier Richard Antoni 6-2, 6-2 to make it through to the last 16.
There, he will face Nikita Bilozertsev from Ukraine, who was a 6-2, 6-1 winner against Indian qualifier Vivek Kolluru yesterday.
Also making it through were Karlis Ozolins from Latvia and Manish Sureshkumar from India.
Ozolins ousted Frenchman Louis Larue 6-3, 6-1 in their opening round encounter, while Sureshkumar battled past Ivan Nedelko from Russia 6-2, 2-6, 6-4.
Action in the tournament continues today, with several other seeded players appearing in their first round matches, including second seed Giles Hussey from Britain, third seed Jelle Sels from the Netherlands, fourth seed Sergey Fomin form Uzbekistan, fifth seed Olaf Pieczkowski from Poland, sixth seed Aleksandre Bakshi from Georgia, seventh seed Pyotr Nesterov from Bulgaria, and eighth seed Nino Ehrenschneider from Germany, who was the champion of the first Men’s ITF World Tennis Tour event – an M15 competition – held last week in the kingdom.
The ongoing tournament carries $30,000 in total prize money.
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