Fil-German bows to Taiwanese in tennis tilt

MANILA, Philippines—Fourth-seeded Juan Ting-fei of Chinese Taipei overcame a rough first set to turn back Filipino-German Katharina Lehnert, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, Thursday and advance to the quarterfinals of the ICTSI-ITF Women’s Circuit Week 2 at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.

A first-round loser last week, Juan found a way to handle Lehnert’s solid serves and then slowly cut the blonde ace down to size with her steady baseline game.

The 19-year-old Juan, ranked 534th in the world, next faces Japanese seventh seed Yurina Koshino, who hurdled China’s Zhu Aiwen, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3.

As expected, Thai top seed Luksika Kumkhum easily made it to the next round via a methodical 6-2, 6-2 rout of Hong Seung-yeon of South Korea.

She set up a duel with sixth seed Venise Chan Wingyau of Hong Kong, a 6-0, 6-2 winner over Indonesia’s Sharmada Balu.

Second seed Zhao Yijing of China also gained the next round after besting Kim Ju-eun of South Korea, 7-5, 6-3. She will next meet compatriot Yang Zi, who eliminated Nastassia Rubel of Belarus, 6-3, 6-1.

China actually sent two more players into the quarterfinals with Guo Lu and Wen Xin hurdling their second-round matches.

Guo stunned Chinese Taipei’s Lee Huan-chen, 6-2, 6-2, while Wen edged Indonesia’s Rishika Sunkara, 7-5, 6-2.