Flavours of China

In the semifinals on Saturday, both top seed Chuhan Wang and second seed Bowen Ouyang saw off their opponents with minimal fuss and set up a repeat of last week’s ITF Junior event final.

The Chinese boys showed why they received the top billing on the penultimate day of the Asian Junior Tennis Championships. In the semifinals on Saturday, both top seed Chuhan Wang and second seed Bowen Ouyang saw off their opponents with minimal fuss and set up a repeat of last week’s ITF Junior event final.

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Sixth seed Vaidik Munshaw was the lone Indian in the fray and he was up against Ouyang in his semifinal. Munshaw put on a brave show in the first set, but fell short, losing 5-7.

In the second, Ouyang was more clinical, and closed the match 7-5, 6-3. In the second semifinal, Wang faced the number eight seed, Warit Sornbutnark of Thailand. The Thai player had seen off the 4th seed Indian favourite Sai Kartik Nakireddi in the quarters, and was looking to continue his good show. Wang though, was not in a charitable mood, and though both sets were close, Wang never really looked threatened on the way to a 6-4, 6-4 win. Ouyang will be looking to add to the glory of the Asian title.

The Indian challenge in the women singles at the Championships ended with seventh seed Rishika Sunkara going out in the semis to Miho Kowase of Japan. Kowase will face Ran Tian of China in the finals. Second seed Tian will be looking to make it a Chinese sweep of the singles events, since the boys’ final is an all-Chinese affair. Results: Boys’ single: 2 seed B Ouyang [CHN] bt V Munshaw [IND] 7-5, 6-3, 1 seed C Wang [CHN] bt 8 Seed W Sornbutnark [THA] 6-4, 6-4; Girls’ singles: 9 Seed M Kowase [JPN] bt 7 seed R Sunkara [IND] 6-3, 6-3, 2 seed R Tian [CHN] bt 5 seed– L Zhu [CHN] 6-3, 6-2.