The Indian challenge in men's singles in the ITF Futures tennis championship in Chennai was kept alive by Sunil Kumar Sipaeya and Vishal Uppal who advanced to the quarterfinals in contrasting styles on Wednesday.
Sunil Kumar put paid to the aspirations of compatriot Somdev Dev Varman 6-4, 6-3 and Uppal got the better of Vijay Kannan 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (7/4), 6-1.
Uppal, ranked 778 in the world, will play qualifier Sarvar Ikramov (935) of Uzbekistan and Sunil Kumar (649) will take on another qualifier, Tai-Wei-Liu (832) of Taipei in the quarterfinals. The other quarterfinals will be between Dmitrv Mazur (Uzbekistan) and Karim Maamoun (Egypt) and Filip Urban (Poland) and Rainer Eitzinger (Austria).
Mazur, who ousted top seed Todor Enev (Bulgaria) on Tuesday continued his giant killing run with a hard fought 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4 win over qualifier Yu Wang of China, while unseeded Maamoun defeated seventh seed Febi Widhiyanto (Indonesia) 6-4, 6-4.
Ikramov eliminated fifth seed Yordan Kanev of Bulgaria 6-3, 6-4.
In doubles, Sunil Kumar and Ajay Ramaswami moved into the semifinal with a fine 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) win over the Chinese pair Xin-Yuan YU and Yu Wang.
The Mustafa Ghouse-Vishal Uppal match against Todor Enev and Yordan Kanev (both Bulgaria) was postponed to tomorrow due to bad light. The Indian pair had won the first set 7-6 (7/2) and lost the second 5-7, when play was stopped.
Earlier Manoj Mahadevan and Rishi Sridhar lost 1-6, 4-6 against Filip Aniola and Filip Urban.