Pel, Nirundorn advance to semis in ITF juniors

Kolkata, Jan 24 (IANS) Stijn Pel of Netherlands and Mai Nirundorn of Thailand moved to the semifinals of the boys and girls singles, respectively, in the ongoing ITF Juniors tennis competition on Thursday.Pel and Nirundorn got the better of Madhwin Kamath of India 6-1, 6-3 and Dutch Melissa Boyden 6-3, 6-3, respectively.In boys' Singles, eighth seed Guy Ouden (Netherlands) bowed out having lost to Hanwen Li of China 5-7, 3-6.AIn girls' singles, fifth seed Lunda Kumhom (Thailand) and seventh seed Ting-Pei Chang (Taipei) lost to Anastasia Astakhova (Kazakhstan) 3-6, 4-6 and Alexandra Eala (Philippines) 3-6, 6-7.US based of Indian origin Bikramjeet Singh Chawla graduated to the semis when he thrashed Yan Cheng Chen of Taipei 6-4, 6-3. Han-Chi Linh (Taipei) and Tilwith Di Girolami (Belgium) proceeded to the semi finals of boys' and girls' events, respectively.While Lin won a hard fought encounter against Jin Gu (China) 6-4, 0-6, 6-2, Girolami had it fairly easy 6-3, 6-1 over Shouran Wang (China).There weren't many surprises in doubles. In the girls' category, top seed Weronika Baszak (Poland) and Federia Sacco (Italy) will meet the second seed Thai duo of Kumhom and Nirundorn in the final on Friday.The Chinese pair of Li and Zhang won a tough fought match against Kabir Hans (India) and Han-Chin Lin (Taipei) 6-3, 2-6, 10-8 and will meet the top seed Dutch duo Pel and Ouden in the final.
--IANS dm/nir