Australian fourth seed Andrew Whittington and American seventh seed Noah Rubin both made it into the Launceston Challenger quarter-finals on Wednesday. Rubin eased through in straight sets, though Whittington struggled a little more.
Rubin was handed a match against Australian qualifier Bradley Mousley, and dispatched the Australian 64 64. After facing another Australian in the first round in Luke Saville, Rubin did not drop his serve this time, saving all three break points he faced and breaking the qualifier once in each set.
Fourth seed Whittington had a much tougher match against Australian-born Brit Brydan Klein. Whittington won the first set, but Klein fended off four break points to take the second set on his single break point chance. Whittington then improved his serve, going 100% on first serve points in the decider. He broke the Brit, who himself only dropped one point on first serve in the third set. Klein could not create any opportunities against the dominant Whittington serve, and the Australian moved into the quarter-finals 64 36 63.
The bottom quarter had already lost its seeds, Jan Satral and Sam Groth, to a retirement and a withdrawal. This paved the way for unseeded players to try and make a run to at least the semi-finals.
American Daniel Nguyen was one player who took the opportunity to get to the quarter-finals on Thursday, as he defeated young Australian Marc Polmans 76 64. Nguyen is now perfect in tiebreaks at this tournament this year, going three for three so far.
He will face Italian Riccardo Bellotti after he defeated another young Australian in Max Purcell. Bellotti dropped the first set, but recovered to lose just five more games in the match, with the final score 46 63 62.
Sixth seed Mohamed Safwat takes on the injury-prone Alex Bolt in the top half quarter-final tomorrow, whilst qualifier Tsung-Hua Yang will face American Mitchell Krueger. Krueger is a player to be wary of, as though unseeded, he has already knocked out eighth seed Akira Santillan and Burnie champion Omar Jasika in this tournament so far.
I think that Safwat will defeat Bolt, whilst Krueger, though unpredictable, should have enough to end Yang’s interest in the 2017 Launceston Challenger.
