Australia, China lead seeds into last eight

ALL eight seeded teams in the World Junior Tennis (WJT) Girls Championship Asia/Oceania Final Qualifiers moved into the last eight after each won their tie at the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) Centre in Kuching on May 9 The top two seeds, Australia and China once again had trouble-free 3-0 triumphs against the Philippines and Sri Lanka respectively. Kimberly Birrell had an easy Group A match against the Philippines' Maia Bernadette Balce, winning 6-0, 6-1, before Priscilla Hon had an easier time, beating Maria Dominique Ong without losing a single game. Kimberly then partnered Sara Tomic to beat the pair of Maia and Erika Mae Manduriao 6-0, 6-1 in the doubles. Second seeds China also had an easy Group B tie against Sri Lanka, with their players also dropping just two games in the tie when Cao Si Qi overcame Nethmit Waduge 6-2, 6-0 in the second singles. The other two matches both ended 6-0, 6-0 when Li Yue-Nu beat Rukhsana Abdeen in the first singles and Li-Ren Jia-Si Qi winning against Waduge-Fathoum Issadeen in the doubles. Malaysia, in the meantime, lost for the second time in Group C, 3-0 against Japan, while India, the fourth seeds, trounced Hong Kong 3-0 and fifth seeds Korea won 3-0 against Singapore in Group D. In other matches yesterday, Thailand beat Kazakhstan 3-0 in another Group C match, Taiwan beat Indonesia 2-0 in Group B and New Zealand, seeded eighth, beat Uzbekistan 2-0 in Group A. By Winston Way