The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Prakash starts favourite

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Monday, Jun 04, 2007
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Prakash starts favourite

Special Correspondent

DEHRADUN: Prakash Amritraj will start the favourite once again when the ONGC $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament begins here on Monday.

High on confidence following his triumph in Chandigarh, Prakash would be keen to add as many ATP points to his kitty as possible over the next fortnight, before he ventures into the bigger league.

Prakash starts against a qualifier and if he plays to form, could possibly meet the seventh-seeded Ashutosh Singh in the quarterfinals. It may be recalled that Ashutosh had beaten Prakash the last time the two had met. However, it has to be mentioned that Prakash is playing at his best and can quell the challenge from the current field.

Rastogi is top seed

The top-seeded Karan Rastogi will also be keen to build on his reputation with consistent results. He has to break the self-inflicted shackles and play to potential, as he has worked pretty hard to build the weapons that could soon push him into the top-300. The problem is, he keeps them hidden most of the time and flourishes them only as a desperate measure.

Karan will open his campaign against Robert Searle of Britain and has the sixth-seeded Navdeep Singh, a fighter to the core, in his quarter.

Sunil Kumar, Vishnu Vardhan, Vijay Kannan, Punna Vishal, Purav Raja and the second-seeded Vivek Shokeen will be some of the other prominent players who would be keen to make the best use of the opportunities in the heat of the unfriendly home conditions.

The talented Sanam Singh has opted to skip this event, as he is reportedly getting ready to follow the footsteps of Somdev Dev Varman, who recently won the prestigious NCAA title, into the University league of the United States .

No wonder that Indian tennis makes room for more scholars of late than professional champions.

To further drive home the point, the former Asian junior champion and the present coach of the Indian Davis Cup team, Sandeep Kirtane qualified into the singles main draw.

The seedings: 1. Karan Rastogi, 2. Vivek Shokeen, 3. Sunil Kumar, 4. Prakash Amritraj, 5. Vijay Kannan, 6. Navdeep Singh, 7. Ashutosh Singh and 8. Matthew Smith.

Wild cards: Kinshuk Sharma, Ashutosh Singh, Varun Walia and Siddharth Raj.

The results (final qualifying round): Shivang Mishra bt Fariz Mohammed 6-7(6), 7-6(4), 6-4; Rohan Gajjar bt Ciaran Moore (RSA) 6-4, 6-3; Sriram Balaji bt Rahil Makharia 6-4, 6-3; Kamala Kannan bt Nishank Mishra 3-6, 6-4, 6-2; Sandeep Kirtane bt Yannick Nelord 7-6(2) retired.

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