Leander Paes in the semifinals of Vietnam Challenger

Top seeds Leander Paes in partnership with Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela made the doubles semifinals of the $54,160 Challenger in Vietnam without dropping a set in two rounds.

The Indo-Mexican pair beat Antoine Escoffier and Yusuke Takahashi 6-3, 6-1 in the quarterfinals after getting past the Indian duo of Sriram Balaji and Arjun Kadhe in the first round.

In singles, Sasi Kumar Mukund and Sumit Nagal bowed out in the third round, in a draw of 48. In the new format, the Challenger singles draw has only a four-player qualifying event, with 16 more players accommodated in the enhanced main draw.

The pre-quarterfinalists collected $860 each.

Meanwhile, the champions of the Tata Maharashtra Open ATP event in Pune, Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan were beaten in the first round of the Sydney ATP event by the seasoned team of Ivan Dodig and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.

Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Nitin Kumar Sinha progressed into the quarterfinals of singles in the $25,000 ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament in China on Thursday.

The results:

$589,680 ATP, Sydney, Australia
Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Ivan Dodig (CRO) & Edouard Roger-Vasselin (FRA) bt Rohan Bopanna & Divij Sharan 6-2, 6-4.

$54,160 Challenger, Da Nang, Vietnam
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Denis Yevseyev (KAZ) bt Sasi Kumar Mukund 6-4, 6-2; Tsung-Hua Yang (TPE) bt Sumit Nagal 2-6, 6-1, 6-0.

Second round: Sasi Kumar Mukund bt Shinji Hazawa (JPN) 6-1, 6-4; Denis Yevseyev (KAZ) bt Arjun Kadhe 6-2, 6-1; Sumit Nagal bt Sriram Balaji 7-6(0), 7-6(6).

First round: Arjun Kadhe bt Alessandro Bega (ITA) 6-4, 4-6, 6-4; Sriram Balaji bt Ji Sung Nam (KOR) 7-6(1), 7-6(3); Cheong-Eui Kim (KOR) bt Sidharth Rawat 6-3, 6-1.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela (MEX) & Leander Paes bt Antoine Escoffier (FRA) & Yusuke Takahashi (JPN) 6-3, 6-1.
Pre-quarterfianls: Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela & Leander Paes bt Sriram Balaji & Arjun Kadhe 6-3, 7-5.

$25,000 ITF men, Anning, China
Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Vijay Sudnar Prashanth bt Aoran Wang (CHN) 6-1, 7-6(3); Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Li-Wie Tan (TPE) 3-6, 7-5, 6-4; Kuan-Yi Lee (TPE) bt Anirudh Chandrasekar 1-6, 6-3, 6-3; First round: Anirudh Chandrasekar bt Wei-De LIn (TPE) 6-3, 6-4.

$25,000 ITF women, Hong Kong
Doubles (quarterfinals): Pei Hsuan Chen & Fang-Hsien Wu (TPE) bt Ana Veselinovic (MNE) & Prarthana Thombare 7-6(5), 6-2.