14-year-old Turkmen tennis player Ali Geldiyev finished sixth among the 16 strongest juniors from Western and Central Asia following the regional qualifying tournament for the Roland Garros Junior Series, which took place on the clay courts of the Gorky Tennis Park club in Almaty.

According to the online newspaper "Golden Age," 16 U16 juniors from Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan competed for two spots in the final round of the Asian qualification. Geldiyev, a 10th-grader at the Young Olympians Training School, made his debut at this level, being younger than most of his competitors.

In the group, he lost in a tie-break to the first seeded Kazakhstani Rodion Traigel (3:6, 6:2, 5:10), then beat Uzbekistanis Beksulton Voksidov (7:6(1), 6:0) and Don Sung Kim (6:0, 6:1), taking second place in the quartet and advancing to the quarterfinals. There, he lost to the eventual tournament winner, Iran's Kiarash Sadegizadeh (2:6, 5:7). In the matches for 5th-8th places, the Turkmen athlete defeated Uzbekistan's Hamidjon Mansurov (6:2, 6:3), but lost to Kazakhstan's Dias Tulepbergenov (4:6, 0:6), finishing the tournament in sixth place.

Based on the results, Geldiyev retains the right to participate in the Roland Garros Junior Series qualification next year.

The athlete's first coach was Babamurat Mamatrasulov from Turkmenabat Youth Sports School No. 9. He currently trains at the “Ashgabat” Tennis Academy under the guidance of Yuri Rogusskiy and Meylis Orazmuhammedov. In May of this year, at the age of 14, Geldiyev became the men's champion of Turkmenistan, setting a national record.