RAMSBURY Tennis Club's joint head coach Lewis Fletcher is guaranteed the opportunity of playing off for a bronze medal later this week at the 21st Summer Deaflympics in Taipei after a mixed day for Wiltshire-based players on Tuesday's third day of competition.
Fletcher won both his men's singles second round and men's doubles quarter-finals matches, but there was disappointment for Devizes' Daniel Tunstall, who exited both events at the same stage.
After beating Austrian second seed Danel Erlbacher in the first round on Monday, 24-year-old Fletcher continued his fine form with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over the Slovak Republic's Peter Karlik to book his place in the last eight of the men's singles.
Fletcher meets German Hans Toedter in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Fletcher and Cheshire's Darren O'Donnell, the fourth seeds for the men's doubles, followed up a first round bye with a three sets victory, duo Tetsuya Matsushita and Reiki Kajishita 3-6, 6-1, 6-3.
They play Australian's Glen Flindell and Stephen Swann in the semi-finals, where victory would guarantee Fletcher at least a silver medal in the sporting equivalent of the Olympics for elite deaf athletes.
"I'm delighted to get through my second match here. Once again I prepared well and played a positive match," said Fletcher.
"I'm really looking forward to my doubles and my next round now." Tunstall has won mixed doubles bronze medals at the last two Deaflympics, but his chances of a third medal from four successive Games appearances disappeared on Tuesday.
The head tennis coach at Devizes Sports Club and the brother of singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, 30, slippped to a 2-6, 2-6 defeat at the hands of Hungarian top seed Gabor Mathe in the second round of the men' singles.
Britain's most experienced men's player in Taipei, Tunstall paired up with the least experienced, Hampshire's Jamie King, for a second round men's doubles contest against Austrian third seeds Erlbacher and Mario Kargl.
However, despite a good effort, Tunstall and King eventually lost out 3-6, 5-7.
Apart form Fletcher's men's singles quarter-final, Wednesday's schedule in Taipei sees his partner and fellow head coach at Rambsury Tennis Club, Catherine Graham, face Chinese Taipei's Chiu-Mei Ho in the quarter-finals of the women's singles before she joins fellow Briton Anthony Sinclair in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles.
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