Turkmen tennis players have advanced to the semifinals of the 2026 Davis Cup Juniors U16 Asia/Oceania Pre-Qualifying Event, currently taking place in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, with the participation of 15 teams. This notable achievement was secured today after a 2-0 victory over the fifth-seeded team from the Philippines in the quarterfinals, The Golden age electronic newspaper reports.
The winning score in the match was opened by Suleyman Hudayberdiyev, a student at Specialized Secondary School No.86 in Ashgabat, who confidently defeated Brendan Zachary Morales in the first singles match, 6-1, 6-2, in just 1 hour and 15 minutes.
In the second match, Filipino player Lucas Sebastian Go made a strong effort to save the tie. From the outset, he put up a serious fight against Aly Geldiyev, taking the first set in a tie-break, 7-6(5). The day before, the 14-year-old student at the Ashgabat School for Training Young Olympians had played an exhausting match lasting over three hours against a representative from Singapore – an effort after which not every athlete can quickly recover under a tight schedule. However, Aly did not lose heart after dropping the first set and once again demonstrated excellent physical conditioning, which helped him turn the match around and clinch victory in the next two sets, 6-4, 6-4, in a contest that lasted 3 hours and 2 minutes.
After losing both singles matches, the Filipino team withdrew from the doubles match, as its outcome no longer had any bearing on determining the winner.
This marks the fourth victory for the Turkmen tennis players in the DCJ Asia Oceania Pre-Qualifying Event. Earlier, they had successively defeated the teams of Oman (3-0), Myanmar (2-1), and Singapore (2-1), finishing first in Group B. Now, the Turkmen junior team – also featuring strong doubles player Kerimgeldi Guldurdyyev, who took part in key matches – has reached the top four teams of the tournament.
In the semifinal, Turkmenistan will face the third-seeded team from Vietnam, which topped Group D in the initial stage, defeating Nepal, Mongolia and the Pacific Oceania team all by identical 3-0 scores, and then secured a comeback victory in the quarterfinals over the fourth-seeded Saudi Arabia team 2-1.
