Takuya Miki produced the first significant upset at the 20th Sardinia Open, part of the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour, as competition for the Tavoni Trophy intensified on Thursday’s third day of play at the ITF 1 Series event at Alghero Tennis Club.

While Sam Schroder and Niels Vink reached their second quad singles final against each other in the space of three weeks, Miki claimed his first career win over two-time US Open champion Alfie Hewett.

With almost 100 players setting out in search of the titles, the eight men’s singles seeds advanced to the quarter-finals without dropping a set after the tournament contended with rain on Wednesday’s second morning of play rain and got back on track thanks to the ASDC Sardinia Open team.

Three of Miki’s five matches against Hewett before Thursday’s quarter-finals had gone to three sets, with former world No. 6 Miki having taken Hewett to a final set tiebreak in their last previous meeting in 2017. However, the Japanese fifth seed secured the crucial breakthrough in Alghero to earn a 6-4 6-3 victory.

Miki plays third seed Nicolas Peifer for a place in the final after Peifer’s first three-set match in six career meetings with Spain’s Martin de la Puente ended in a 6-2 4-6 6-4 win for the Frenchman.

Peifer’s countryman, top seed and defending champion Stephane Houdet, looks to be the player to beat once again as the world No. 4 has yet to drop a single game in three matches, having defeated de la Puente’s fellow Spaniard and eighth seed Daniel Caverzaschi. Houdet who is bidding for his fifth successive Sardinia Open title, now plays last week’s French Riviera Open champion Gordon Reid, who also won his first two matches 6-0, 6-0 before dropping his first games of the tournament in a 6-4 6-3 semi-final victory over seventh seed Jef Vandorpe.

Schroder to play Vink for quad singles title

Top seed Schroder and second seed Vink will meet in an ITF 1 quad singles final for the second time in three weeks as Vink bids to make it three titles on French soil in three weeks.

Both Dutchmen ended the challenge of German twins Marcus and Maximilian Laudan, Schroder defeating Maximilian in the first round and Vink beating Marcus in the quarterfinals.

With Schroder and Vink joined in the semi-finals by former world No. 1 Shraga Weinberg and Britain’s Antony Cotterill, Cotterill secured a personal best result in Alghero against Anders Hard. After three previous Sardinia Open losses to Hard, fourth seed Cotterill earned a 6-4 6-2 win this time before bowing out to Vink 6-1 6-2 in Thursday’s semi-finals.

Weinberg earned back-to-back wins over Brits Richard Green and James Shaw as the third seed made it to the last four, but Schroder wrapped up his sixth successive win over the Israeli veteran 6-4 6-1.

With Vink having beaten Schroder two weeks ago to win the International Open de L’Ile de Re and the 16-year-old world No. 7 then going on to win last week’s French Riviera Open, he will now play world No. Schroder for the fifth time.

All four seeds into women’s semifinals

All four seeded players are through to the semi-finals of the women’s singles, which began with top seed Yui Kamiji meeting former world No. 1 and Rio Paralympic champion Jiske Griffioen for the second week in a row.

With Griffioen, who retired in 2017, starting something of comeback at last week’s French Riviera Open, Kamiji won their first match in over two years 6-0 6-0. Griffioen won only one more game in Sardinia as Kamiji raced into the quarter-finals and the world No. 2 subsequently won Thursday’s quarter-final against fifth seed Katharina Kruger 6-0 6-0.

Having met Jordanne Whiley in the final of the French Riviera Open, Kamiji plays the world No.5-ranked Britain for a place in the final in Sardinia. A former finalist in Alghero, Whiley joined Kamiji in dropping just one game in her opening match. She then beat Chinese seventh seed Hui Min Huang for the second week in a row, but Huang got closer than ever before to Whiley before the third seed wrapped up a 6-4 7-6(0) quarter-final victory.

Second seed Aniek van Koot and fourth seed Sabine Ellerbrock contest the other women’s singles semi-final, Germany’s world No. 9 Ellerbrock having dropped just four games so far after beating sixth seed Michaela Spaanstra 6-0 6-3 in the last eight. After matching her countrywoman Spaanstra with an opening 6-0 6-0 win, Wimbledon champion van Koot booked her semi-final place with a 6-4 6-1 win over eight seed Charlotte Famin.           

The 20th edition of the Sardinia Open will livestream matches on both Friday, 5 October and Saturday, 6 October. Live streams at www.sardiniaopen.net will be live from 10.00 local time on both days. On Saturday’s last day of play, finals will be available on live stream from 10.00 to 13.00 local time and from 15.00 pm to 19.00.