TENNIS – Pippa Fennis from the Netherlands was yesterday crowned a double champion in the J30 Manama Bahrain ITF Juniors tournament, which came to a close at the Bahrain Tennis Federation (BTF) hard courts in Isa Town.
The competition was part of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour Juniors Calendar, and it was the latest of a series of ITF events being held in the kingdom over the past several weeks.
Pippa captured the girls’ singles crown after upsetting second seed Veronika Navratilova from the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-0 in their final yesterday.
Her victory came a day after she won the girls’ doubles title with compatriot Mila van der Lecq.
They triumphed in their final after defeating the second-seeded pair of Elise Virr from Australia and Erika Abraham-Nilsen from Norway 6-2, 6-3.
Meanwhile, Malek El Qurneh from Jordan emerged as boys’ singles champion yesterday.
Eighth-seeded Malek won his title with a 6-1, 6-1 victory against fourth seed Abdurakhmon Karimov from Uzbekistan 6-1, 6-1.
Malek joined the tandem of Pavel Joromsky Jr from Russia and Igor Piasek from Poland as boys’ champions in the tournament.
Pavel and Igor were the boys’ doubles title winners after beating the Swiss pair of Charlie Bazil and Ivan Stepanov 6-3, 6-3 in their final.
Following yesterday’s singles finals, the tournament’s winners were presented their respective trophies and medals by BTF board members Adnan Kamal and Jameela Al Nashaba, along with head referee Ahmed Al Hawaj.
Another tournament on the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors Calendar is set to take place in Bahrain this week.
It is scheduled to get underway tomorrow and continue until Saturday.
It is a J60 Manama event, again taking place at the BTF and set to feature singles and doubles competitions for both boys and girls.
The players’ acceptance list currently includes Lisa Anzai from Japan as the girls’ singles number one seed and Arnav Paparkar from India as the boys singles top seed.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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