American Oliver Crawford and Indian Sharma Atharva stormed into the quarterfinals of the ongoing Rwanda Open M25 tournament after eliminating India’s Ganta Karteek Reddy and South African Dylan Salton respectively out of the round of 16 on Thursday.
The first week of Rwanda Open M25 is underway at Kigali Ecology Tennis Club since Monday, September 4 and will run through Sunday, September 10.
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Tennis enthusiasts who have been closely following the tournament over the past few days tipped Crawford and Sharma as hot favorites to win the tournament and, like they said, the pair is hitting the clay ground running.
Crawford, 24, reached the last eight after beating Karteek Reddy 2-0 (6-2 6-3) in the round of 16 on Thursday. Ranked 295th on the ITF World Ranking, the American is the highest ranked of all players who are taking part in the competition.
He will now face Agarwal Rishab who defeated his countryman Yadav Yash 6-2 6-1 in another round of 16 game.
Meanwhile, Sharma advanced to the quarterfinals after seeing off South Africa’s Salton in two straight sets 6-4 6-3 in the round of the last 16.
Sharma, who first reached the round of 16 after eliminating Rwanda’s Junior Hakizumwami in the first round of the tournament, will face Benjamin Lock who eliminated Egypt’s Bassem Sobhy 6-3 6-2.
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In other round of 16 fixtures, French Corentin Denolly stormed into the last eight after beating Brightish Southcombe Mattias 2-0 (6-3 6-2). Denolly had initially defeated Rwandan Etienne Niyigena in the first round of the competition.
Swiss Damien Wenger swept India’s Jaisinghan Raghav 6-0 6-1 while indian Eqbal Ishaque beat Australian Lawrence 6-1 6-4 Bataljin to reach the quarterfinals.
In Friday’s quarterfinals, Denolly will face Ukrainian Ursu Vadym, who defeated 6-2 0-6 6-3 India’s Dev Prajwal in the round of 16 while Eqbal Ishaque will play Damien Wenger.
Rwanda Open M25 will run for two weeks with the first week running from September 4-10, while the second week will take place from September 11-17. All games will take place at Kigali Ecology Tennis Club.
Each week will involve 32 players including 20 top ranked players are exempted from preliminary stages due to the fact that they are ranked below 1000 on ITF/ATP ranking while eight others are made to play the preliminary games for them to progress to the first round. Four remaining players are granted wild cards to be included in the competition