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Quarterfinal chaos: top singles seeds fall at PPA Hong Kong
The top seeds in both the men’s and women’s singles draw at the Hang Seng Bank Hong Kong Slam are out of title contention after falling in the quarterfinals.
On the men’s side, Noe Khlif defeated Chris Haworth 13-11, 11-3 to make his second semifinal in as many weeks after also making the final four at least week’s Virginia Beach Open.
Khlif survived an epic opening game that lasted nearly thirty minutes and even saved a game point before closing it out and comfortably taking Game 2 to notch his first victory over Haworth in five tries.
“I played [Chris] a couple times this year and couldn’t even win a game. I feel like today, I played really well,” Khlif said of the performance. “We had a really tough Game 1 where I saved some game points. It ended up going my way, and I was able to carry that momentum into Game 2.”
Khlif will face Tama Shimabukuro in the semifinals in a rematch of the gold medal match from last month’s Kuala Lumpur Cup, a bout which Shimabukuro won by an 11-8, 11-5 score line.
Moving on to women’s singles, Judit Castillo defeated top seed Kaitlyn Christian for the second time in two weeks, coming away with an 11-9, 5-11, 12-10 victory after over an hour on court.
Castillo, who took silver at last week’s Australia Pickleball Cup in Brisbane, faced a 4-9 deficit in the deciding game before going on a late run that saw her save two match points.
She will play against her women’s doubles partner, Kiora Kunimoto, in the semifinals.
See the full semifinal order of play below:
Live broadcast coverage from Kai Tak Arena starts at 8pm CT / 9pm ET on the PPA Tour YouTube.
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