Dubai: A host of seeds crashed out of the boys and girls competitions as the 13th Dubai ITF Junior Championships reached the semi-final stages at the Al Wasl Club tennis courts on Thursday.
Top seed Filip Grbic from Serbia went down 3-6, 2-6 to American wild card Ammar Al Hogbani, with the latter going on to meet seventh seed Kaya Gore of Turkey, a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 winner against India’s Kushaan Nath.
In the lower half of the boys’ draw, second seed Akram Al Sallaly of Egypt scored a 6-4, 7-6 (8) win over Greek Apostolos Koutsaftis. He will next meet UAE-based fourth seed Kareem Allaf of Syria in the semi-finals after Allaf secured an easy 6-4, 6-3 win over eighth seed Mohammad Abdul Aziz from Great Britain.
The girls’ singles competition is left with just two seeds — No. 2 Elenia Christofi of Greece and No. 3 Eliza Omirou from Cyprus.
The Greek had an easy 6-0, 6-2 win over qualifier Derya Yahe from Bulgaria, while Omirou emerged a 6-1, 6-0 winner over Sofia Sualehe from Portugal.
Christofi will now meet Anna Savchenko from Cyprus and Omirou will take on Tatiana Makarova, a 6-4, 6-1 winner over Inci Ogut from Turkey.
The competitions also witnessed the departures of three seeds each on the third day of competition on Wednesday.
On Friday, action will begin at 10.30am, with all four singles semi-finals being held, followed by the boys and girls doubles finals from 1.30pm.
