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India's jr tennis team in last 8
Our Correspondent |
May 21, 2003 19:03 IST
India's boys' team went down to Korea in the final round-robin match of the World junior tennis Asia/Oceania qualifying tournament, at Melbourne Park National Tennis Centre, Melbourne, Australia, on Wednesday.
India, who had already qualified for the quarter-final stage, lost 1-2 in what was their last match.
India No. 1 Arnav Jain defeated Dae Soung Oh of Korea 6-3, 6-0 to give his team a flying start. But the Koreans came back strongly to win the next two matches, Chung Eui Kim beating Agnel Gladwin 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 and Chung Eu Kim/ Soung Hi Ahm accounting for Arnav Jain/ Mesheer Vaswani 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
The defeat meant that third seeds India finished second behind fourth seeds Korea in Group II.
In Group I, fifth seeds Japan took the top spot, ahead of top seeds Australia, while in Group III, second seeds Thailand finished on top followed by unseeded Indonesia. Sixth seeds Chinese Taipei finished third.
Chinese Taipei and The Philippines also qualified for Thursday's quarter-finals as the third-best teams along with Japan, Australia, Korea, India, Thailand and Indonesia.
The pairings for the quarter-finals: Japan vs Chinese Taipei; India vs Indonesia; Australia vs Korea; Thailand vs The Philippines.
Earlier, the Indian boys defeated The Philippines 2-0 in the first round on Day 1 and Malaysia 3-0 in their second match.
In the girls' section, fourth seeds India defeated Indonesia 2-0 on Tuesday, after losing 1-2 to Hong Kong in their first match.
The teams advancing to last four stage will qualify for the ITF World Junior Tennis finals, to be held in the Czech Republic.
The ITF World Junior Tennis competition began in 1991 as an international team competition for boys and girls aged 14 and under.