Georgian tennis player Lado Chikhladze decided to return to court after a long pause. He started competing in the tournament (prize 10 000) in the city of Austria, St. Polten. He won 7 matches in a row.
Chikhladze who has just treated injury started competing from qualifying round and won 3 matches to go through the next round. First Lado defeated German Navid Johannigman 6:3, 7:5, then American Nicolas Meister (number 2) - 7:6 (8:6), 7:6 (8:6) and at last he defeated Austrian Max Pongraz 6:3, 6:3.
German Stefan Deirauf was his opponent in the next round and defeated him in a 3-set match 3:6, 6:4, 6:0. British Joshua Milton was (number 6) his opponent in 1/8 final. Lado beat Joshua 7:6, 2:6, 6:3.
German Richard White will be opponent of Lado in semifinal.
Georgian tennis player also competes successfully at the couples tournament where Austrian Pascal Brunner is his partner. Chikhladze and Brunner defeated Japanese Akaba and Egyptian Huber in the first round 6:1, 6:4. They beat Czech-Finnish duet (Lustig - Pauku) (rating 1) 6:4, 4:6, 10:5 in 1/4 final.
Supposedly, Georgian and Austrian tennis players will play against the British (Fever - Milton) (number 3) in semifinal. Several years ago Chikhladze was considered as one of the leaders of Georgian team. Though, because of injury he missed a long period and had to leave the rating of Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Chikhladze had the best result on October 15 in 2007 when he was number 350 player and number 549 in doubles.



Dato Manjavidze