Abuja Open: Mugabe Upsets Fourth Seed as Q’finalists Emerge

Ugandan Duncan Mugabe caused one of the upsets of the second round by beating fourth-seeded Tucker Vorster of South Africa 6-4, 7-6 as the second leg of the Abuja Open holding at the Tennis Centre, Package B, National Stadium, Abuja reached its home-stretch with quarterfinal places decided wednesday.

Also, top seed Aldin Setkic of Bosnia marches on with a straight 6-4, 6-3 win over David Pel of the Netherlands as the men are now being separated from boys in the ITF Pro Circuit tournament.
Mugabe, who upturned a set deficit to beat Nigerian youngster Sylvester Emmanuel 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 in the first round, stepped up his game and was rewarded with a big win.

On his part, Setkic, the winner of the opening leg of the 2015 Lagos Governor’s Cup ITF Nigeria Futures 2, struggled against Spain’s Aaron Alcaraz in the first round needing a final set to scale through but the world no 208 was in full control over Pel on Centre Court needing just 46 minutes to go through i the ITF Pro Circuit tournament.

It was a similar scenario for second seed, David Perez Sanz of Spain as he strolled to a comfortable 6-2, 6-1 win over Egyptian Issam Taweel in a match that lasted an hour.
First Leg winner, Dutchman Antal van Der Duim, continued his majestic form with an easy 6-2, 6-2 triumph over Germany’ s Pirmin Haenle.

The fifth seed is holding on to his unblemished record as he is yet to drop a set since the first leg which he capped with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Egyptian Mohamed Safwat of last Saturday.
The third-seeded Safwat, on Wednesday, survived a scare as he came from a set down to beat Serbian qualifier Ilija Vucic 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 in 2hrs 23mins.
The world no 272 had been through the same experience in the first leg as he needed a comeback win over Lenny Hampel in their quarterfinal tie last week. He heads for another showdown with van Der Duim in the peak of the last-eight matches.

Hampel showed promise as one of the players that could spring surprises against the seeds following his performance in the first leg but the teenager’s run was halted by sixth seed, Nicolas Meister of the USA who triumphed 6-2, 7-6, Both players paired in the doubles in the first leg where they reached the semi-final. Meister (359) will meet Sanz (258) on Thursday for a passage to the semi-final.

Egyptian Karim-Mohamed Maamoun progressed with a 7-6, 6-3 win over Mark Fynn of Zimbabwe and will meet Mugabe in the quarterfinal.

Yan Sabanin upsets his fellow Russian, Evgeny Tyurnev, the eighth seed 6-3, 7-6 and the reward for his hard work will see him confront Setkic for a place in the semifinal scheduled for Friday.