2016 champion Neil Pauffley has got off to a flyer in the men’s international tennis at Tarka Tennis Centre. The 4th seed at this year’s event followed up his 6-3 6-1 opening round defeat of German Marvin Moeller, with an equally comprehensive victory over fellow Brit Ryan Peniston 6-2 6-2 in round 2 on Wednesday. Pauffley now faces French 5th seed Gregoire Barrere on Thursday for a place in the last 4.
16 year old Brit Anton Matusevich is on a great run of form after winning through 3 rounds of qualifying, and then after capturing a point for his 1st pro world ranking on Tuesday, showed great maturity in his 2nd round victory over Australian Jeremy Beale 6-4 5-7 6-2. The teenager, who competed in the US Open Junior event earlier this month, now faces former world number 115, David Guez, whilst the other quarter-final matches see Tom Farquharson (last week’s winner at Roehampton) facing Bath based player Luke Johnson, with Billy Harris and 2nd seed Michal Konecny completing Thursday’s singles line up.
Wednesday at Tarka also saw Barnstaple’s Lewie Parker make his professional main draw debut, partnering Louis Skupien in the men’s doubles event. Despite going down to former US Open Junior champion Olly Golding and his German partner Florian Hagmann, Parker and Skupien got great support from the local Barnstaple crowd throughout their match on court 4.
For the draw and order of play visit www.lta.org.uk/agbps
Play starts 10.30am on Thursday with stands now in place for spectators.