Australia’s Matthew Ebden won through to the quarter-finals of the men’s singles at the Commonwealth Games overnight with a commanding 6-4 7-5 victory over Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi from Pakistan.
Qureshi, a recent finalist at the 2010 US Open in both doubles and mixed doubles, was unable to handle Ebden’s supreme consistency in the humid conditions on Centre Court.
While the Games have thus far been plagued with low crowd numbers, last night’s match was a full house in an atmosphere Ebden described afterwards as “just awesome”.
Ebden now moves in to the quarter-final stage of the draw where he will face England’s Josh Goodall. This match will be played today at 3.30pm AEST.
Joining Ebden in the quarter-finals are fellow Australian’s Peter Luczak, Greg Jones, Sally Peers, Anastasia Rodionova, and Olivia Rogowska. In all, no Australian has lost a singles encounter thus far at the Games.
Following his singles match, Ebden will return to the court at 9.30pm AEST in quarter-final doubles action against the second seeded Indian pairing of Rohan Bopanna and Somdev Devvarman.