{"id":7318,"date":"2023-09-22T06:29:34","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T20:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/?p=7318"},"modified":"2023-09-22T06:34:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T21:04:13","slug":"friday-frenzy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/news\/2023\/09\/22\/friday-frenzy","title":{"rendered":"Friday Frenzy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro Tour Tennis 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Round two wrap<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thursday saw a full session of second round singles action at the $25,000 NT International Mens ProTour event. Another top-seed fell, and more up-and-comers made the most of their opportunities.<\/p>\n

The biggest upset of the day saw third seed and top 500 ranked Australian Thomas Fancutt<\/strong><\/em> bowing out in two close sets to wildcard Jayden Court<\/strong><\/em>. Court is having a successful two weeks in Darwin after making the second round last week where he pushed the eventual champion Blake Mott to three sets. That effort helped secure him a wildcard for this week\u2019s event and he is now into the quarter-finals. Jayden had almost cracked the top 1000 back in 2019. Currently unranked, he will now bounce back into the ATP tour rankings after his Darwin results.<\/p>\n

The other three seeds left in the draw progressed relatively comfortably. Fourth seeded Kiwi Ajeet Rai<\/strong><\/em> moved past his countryman and qualifier Corban Crowther<\/strong><\/em> 7-6 6-3.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s winner Blake Mott<\/strong> <\/em>had another strong win, knocking out Joshua Charlton<\/strong> <\/em>6-1 6-2 in 65 minutes.<\/p>\n

Jake Delaney<\/strong><\/em>, the sixth seed, was also effective against fellow Aussie Zaharjie-Zak Talic<\/strong> <\/em>6-2 6-2.<\/p>\n

Two qualifiers scored wins meaning they are both on a run of four wins from two qualifying and two main draw matches.<\/p>\n

American qualifier Henrik Wiersholm<\/strong><\/em> took two sets to eliminate New Zealander Alexander Klintcharov<\/strong> <\/em>6-2 6-4. Australian Scott Jones<\/strong><\/em> needed a 3rd set tiebreak to finally squeeze past Japan\u2019s Taiyo Yamanaka<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, Jones had beaten Luke Sorensen<\/strong><\/em> in the last round of qualifying but Sorensen then snuck into the main draw after a withdrawal and has made the most of the opportunity. Sorensen served big in his second round match to defeat Ethan Cook<\/strong> <\/em>in three sets and book a place in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Kody Pearson<\/strong><\/em> of Australia is also there, after Corey Gaal<\/strong><\/em> withdrew with injury battles trailing 0-2 in the first set.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Friday features<\/strong><\/p>\n

Quarter-final matchups kick-off at 3pm at the Darwin International Tennis Centre with free entry. Centre Court seating is under shade, and the canteen is open till play ends.<\/p>\n

First up on Centre Court is a clash between the 4th seed Ajeet Rai<\/strong><\/em> of New Zealand and 5th seed Blake Mott<\/strong> <\/em>of Australia. Mott has won all seven of his singles matches in Darwin so will be aiming for that impressive streak to continue.<\/p>\n

On Court 1 at 3pm, qualifier Scott Jones<\/strong><\/em> takes on wildcard Jayden Court<\/strong><\/em>. Court will be looking to make his first semi-final at this level since 2019 and for Jones, this is his first ProTour quarter-final and will be aiming to push further.<\/p>\n

The matches following will see 6th seeded Jake Delaney<\/strong><\/em> taking on Luke Sorensen<\/em><\/strong> on Centre Court, while out on Court 1, Kody Pearson<\/strong> <\/em>will try and stop American qualifier Henrik Wiersholm’s<\/em><\/strong> run of four wins.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Doubles semi-finals will follow the Singles tonight, come to see a showcase of the top two seeded pairs. Blake Bayldon and Brandon Walkin<\/strong><\/em> are the top seeds this week and play Corban Crowther of New Zealand and Tai Sach<\/strong> <\/em>of Australia. The second seeded team of Thomas Fancutt and Ajeet Rai<\/strong><\/em> face the Japanese duo Geni Inoue and Taiyo Yamanaka.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Darwin Tennis International 2 continues until Sunday September 24<\/strong> at the Darwin International Tennis Centre. Free entry, under shade seating, and the canteen is open till play ends.<\/p>\n

Saturday 23rd: play starts 3pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunday 24th:\u00a0 Mens singles finals start at 3pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Full results, schedules and player profiles at https:\/\/www.itftennis.com\/en\/tournament\/m25-darwin\/aus\/2023\/m-itf-aus-09a-2023\/<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pro Tour Tennis 2023 Round two wrap Thursday saw a full session of second round singles action at the $25,000 NT International Mens ProTour event. Another top-seed fell, and more up-and-comers made the most of their opportunities. The biggest upset of the day saw third seed and top 500 ranked Australian Thomas Fancutt bowing out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6380,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}