Pantino, Eala bow out of Malaysia tennis tourney

MANILA — Arthur Craig Pantino and Michael Francis Eala ended their campaign in the 30th Chief Minister’s Cup after losing in the second round at the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Centre in Malaysia.

According to the tournament website on Friday, Pantino was beaten by third seed Indian Digvijay Pratap Singh, 1-6, 4-6, while Eala fell to 11th seed South African Gerharrdtt Marius Becker, 6-2, 1-6.

Singh’s next opponent is No. 16 Taiwanese Lin Ha-Chih, who pulled off a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Swedish wild card Oliver Andersson.

Becker, on the other hand, will meet No. 7 Japanese Rinky Hijikata, who won over Chinese Lu Pengyu, 6-0, 6-1.

Meanwhile, top seed Malaysian Christian Didier Chin rallied past Swedish Leyton Rivera, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 to advance to the third round where he wil meet American Nikit Reddy, a 6-3, 6-0 winner over No. 13 Chinese Zhou Xinmu.

Also booking third-round slots were No. 2 Japanese Seita Watanabe, No. 5 Australian Campbell Salmon and No. 6 Taiwanese Yu Hua-Chen.

Watanabe defeated Indian Theerttha Shashank Macherla, 6-2, 6-2, to advance against No. 14 Thai Kasidit Samrej, who prevailed over Taiwanese Wang Cheng-Chieh, 6-4, 6-4.

Salmon outclassed Norwegian Herman Jentoft, 6-2, 6-0, to arrange a third-round meeting with Swedish wild card Hugo Regner, who scored a 7-5, 6-3 victory over No. 12 Beibit Zhukayev.

Yu beat Swedish qualifier Rikard Raad, 6-2, 6-3, to advance against Chinese Zhao Run Yu, who outplayed No. 10 Indian Karan Srivastava, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5.

Other winners were No. 9 Chinese Yu Bingyu over Swedish wild card Oliver Dunne, 6-3, 6-2; No. 15 Norwegiaan Lukas Hellum Lilleengen over Thai Yuttaana Charoenphon, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1; Korean Kim Dong Ju over No. 4 Megh Bhargav Patel, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2; and Norwegian Herman Hoeyeraal over No. 8 Ng Ki Lung of Hong Kong, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.