LAHORE, April 13: All the seeded players moved into the semi-finals of the Atlas Honda All-Pakistan tennis championships men’s singles event at the Model Town Club here on Friday.

Top seed Aqeel did not face much difficulty in disposing of the challenge of Shahzad Khan from Faisalabad.

Aqeel folded up the victory with the score of 6-3, 6-4.

Shahzad, who was amongst the best four players in recent past, looked in trouble against Aqeel throughout the proceeding.

With powerful ground strokes and fine return, Aqeel won the first set, after dropping just three points.

However, in the second set, Shahzad looked comparatively stable and started his famous game of serve and volley.

Till the eighth game, Shahzad was neck-and-neck with Aqeel but once the top seed broke the serve in the ninth game it was all over for Shahzad.

Aqeel held his own serve in the next game to oust Shahzad from the contest.

In the second quarter-final, M. Abid, who was part of the Davis Cup squad against Philippines, had to make less efforts in defeating Imran Shaukat 6-4, 6-1.

In the third quarter-final, a rather younger Jalil Khan halted the march of ageing Rashid Malik with 6-4, 6-4 triumph.

In the first set Malik made a bad start as his very first serve was broken by Jalil and that helped the latter to win the first set.

In the second set, both held their serve to be tied till 2-2, before Jalil went to adopt aggressive game and managed to again break Malik’s serve and later held his own serves to complete the win.

In another quarter-final, second seed Yasir Khan toppled sixth seed Heeera Ashiq after facing a good fight.

Yasir won with the score-line of 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-3. The match lasted two hours.

Results: Men’s singles: Quarter-finals: Aqeel Khan bt Shahzad Khan 6-3, 6-4; M. Abid bt Imran Shaukat 6-4, 6-1; Jalil Khan bt Rashid Malik 6-4, 6-4; Yasir Khan bt Heera Ashiq 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-3.

Men’s doubles: Quarter-finals: Aqeel Khan-Jalil Khan bt Saif Ali-Saad Mubarik 6-4, 6-3; M. Abid-Usman Rafiq bt Faizan Khuram-Sada-ul-Haq 5-7, 6-4, (10-6); Heera Ashiq-Khurram Nazir bt Jibran-ul-Haq-Ahmed Choudhry 6-4, 6-3; Shehzad Khan-Yasir Khan bt Sanaullah-Usman Ijaz 6-7, 6-4 (11-9).

Boys’ U-18: Semi-finals: M. Mudasir bt Raja Shahid 6-1, 7-6; Ahmed Babar bt Hasnain Manzoor 6-7, 6-2, 6-4.

Boys’ U-14: Quarter-finals: Nofil Kaleem bt M. Hassan 6-0, 6-0; Shoaib Khan bt Sahibzada M. Ali 6-3, 6-1.

Boys’ U-12: Pre-quarters: Uzaifa bt Hambal 6-2, 5-7, 6-1, Hafiz Arbaz bt Aqib 6-0, 6-2; Shoaib Khan bt Ali Bhindari 6-2, 6-0, Haris Irfan bt Ali Raza 6-0, 6-1; Mohammad Said bt Hashim Javaid 6-1, 6-3; Hamza Bin Rehan bt Nausher Ali 6-2, 6-2.

Saturday’s fixtures: Boys’ U-18 at 10am; boys U-14 at 4pm; boys U-12 at 3.30 pm; men’s doubles at 4.30pm; veterans’ doubles at 4pm; School/college team event at 10am.