Friday, Nov 15, 2002
Friday, Nov 15, 2002 |
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Tennis
By Kalyan Ashok
Harsh Mankad essays a double-fisted return in his quarterfinal encounter against Vijay Kannan in the ITF Futures tennis championship at Davangere on Thursday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
Harsh stifled a late challenge from Vijay Kannan to win 6-1, 6-4 in 68 minutes in the quarterfinals here on Thursday, while Nitin stopped qualifier Sriranga Sudhakar 6-1, 7-6 (7-3). Manoj prevailed over the lone foreign contender, Anton Kokurin of Uzbekistan at 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 and Ajay virtually `walked' into the last four as his Slovakian rival, Boris Borgula, pulled out because of blisters sustained after Wednesday's matches. Harsh's win came easier than expected as he served consistently and counter-punched his way past an off colour Vijay Kannan. The latter couldn't quite get his rhythm, though he served quite few aces, and Harsh always held the whip-hand, with his superb returns and volleys. Vijay held only the first game of the first set and Harsh blitzed past in the next six games. In the seventh, Kannan showed lot of resilience and tried to save the set. Facing a break point at 30-40, he blasted an ace to push the game to a deuce. He battled on, as the game stretched to three more deuces, before netting a low volley and swiping a return out to drop the set. The second set went with serves with Harsh having no problems with his serve and Vijay was truly under pressure. Though Vijay was hard pressed to hold the serve in the fourth and eighth games, he simply couldn't sustain that effort in the crucial tenth game. After Vijay netted a return and a drop, Harsh seized the chance, blasting two winners to not only take the game at love but also the match. "It was tough in the second set, but Vijay Kannan was obviously under pressure and I played my shots'', said Harsh Mankad, who was a finalist at in the first leg at Chandigarh. It was end of the road for the gallant Karnataka qualifier, Sriranga Sudhakar, who was tamed by the wily pro, Nitin Kirtane, in 97 minutes. Sriranga had a good run in this championship as he slugged on from the qualifying rounds to the quarterfinals with an upset over the top seed, Mustafa Ghouse on Wednesday. At this level of tennis, one needs sheer consistency to keep up the momentum and Sriranga fell short on it. But as he observed later, " this is a good beginning and I plan to tour more and play lot on the circuit and try do a good job now that I am back home (after studies in the U.S.)''. It was not that Sriranga was outplayed in this match. He had his chances, especially in the second set, which he lost on the tie-breaker. The script could have been different had he taken that set. But Nitin, sensing a ` kill', never gave him that opportunity. Sriranga failed to keep Kirtane on the move, which might have put pressure, but he was hurrying his shots on the big points and errors flowed from his racket on the forehand in the first set, which proved to be a disaster. He held his serve only once (fifth game) as Nitin, quite effortlessly, broke him in the first, third and seventh games to wrap up the set. The second set saw a much better display from Sriranga, who was getting his shots in, and he kept the rallies going in a brisk fashion. But in the sixth game, he faltered. Nitin forced a break-point as Sriranga slammed two returns long, but the former also played one away over the sidelines, which saw the game go into deuce. Sriranga pushed a forehand out and he compounded that error, with a double fault to drop the game. Nitin, cushioned with a 4-2 lead, was all set the close the match when serving at 5-4. Sriranga, with his back to wall, made a good effort to stay alive. He blasted two great winners to put Nitin down at 0-30 and then seized a break when Nitin made a hash of two returns. Sriranga then squared the issue at 5-all on his serve and the set soon moved into a tie-breaker. Sriranga, who kept spraying his forehand out, found himself staring at barrel down at 1-5. He unleashed an ace to grab one point, but Nitin, staying unfazed, quickly closed the set and match with a neat forehand volley. Manoj Mahadevan played the longest quarterfinal tie of the day, a match lasting 109 minutes. Manoj took the first set with a break in the eighth game (6-3) and dropped the second 3-6, after losing serve in the eighth game. In the decider, though Kokurin held serve in the first game, Manoj took the rest to roll out as an easy winner at 6-1. The tournament authorities, especially the local administration, are making frantic efforts to install floodlighting system in time for the finals. But it is a debatable point whether the move is advisable, as they might have to forego live TV coverage. Also, just installing floodlights alone won't be enough, as it needs extensive testing also. Given the time factor, good testing is not feasible. The results (Indians unless specified): Singles (quarterfinals): Harsh Mankad bt 3-Vijay Kannan 6-1, 6-4; 5-Nitin Kirtane bt Sriranga Sudhakar 6-1,7-6 (7-3); Manoj Mahadevan bt Anton Kokurin (Uzb) 6-3, 3-6, 6-1; Ajay Ramaswamy w/o Boris Borgula (Svk). Doubles (quarterfinals): Kamala Kannan & Rishi Sridhar bt Shivang Misra & Yew Ming Si (Mas) 6-3, 6-2; 1-Vijay Kannan & Vishal Uppal w/o Boris Borgula & Juraj Hasko (Svk); Nitin Kirtane & Anton Kokurin (Uzb) bt Ashutosh Singh & Arjun Gowtham 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-2.
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