Top seed Marfatia crashes out of Asian Under-14

Gurgaon, Sep 28 (UNI) Top seed Jugal Marfatia crashed out with a 5-7, 4-6 loss to seventh seed Vaidik Munshow in the semifinals of the Asian Under-14 tennis championship at the National Tennis Academy here today.

Munshow will now take on third seed Sumeet Shinde, who beat unseeded Rohit Bist 6-2, 7-6 (6) in the other semifinal of the boys' singles event.

Meanwhile, in the girls' singles, unseeded Ratnika Batra upset fifth seed Natallia Khaniejo 6-3, 6-2 to enter the finals where she will will be up against second seed Aishwarya Agarwal who hardly broke a sweat in her 6-0, 6-4 win over fourth seed Yamini Reddy.

In the boys' doubles competition, top seeded pair of Marfatia and Shinde fought off tough challenge from the unheralded duo of Vishal Passi and Parth P Shah to enter the semifinals with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 win.

The top seeds will take on fourth seeded pair of Munshow and N Sai Kartik, who sailed past the Indo-Pak duo of Naveen Anand and Faizan Khuurram with a 6-1, 6-2 win.

Kunal Anand and Rohit Bist, meanwhile, will take on Vishwesh Sinha and Shahbaaz Khan in the other semifinal after both the pairs got a walkover in the second round.

In girls' doubles, top seeds Shweta Rana and Ankita Raina eased past Pamir Gogoi and Nikkie Garga with a 6-1, 6-4 win to storm into the semifinals where they will take on another unseeded pair of Pooja Narayana and Sadhana Athreya.

Pooja and Sadhana upset third seeds Yamini Reddy and Vishesh VKC for a hard-fought 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 victory in the second round.

Meanwhile, Ratnika Batra and Vaniya Dangwal will be up against second seeds Aishwarya Agarwal and Natallia Khaniejo in the other semifinal.

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