The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Aditya outplays Tushar Liberhan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 11, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Aditya outplays Tushar Liberhan

Special Correspondent

LUDHIANA: Aditya Madkekar continued to ride on his strong fitness and superb form to outplay Tushar Liberhan 6-1, 6-3 in the semifinals of the Harvest Academy $10,000 ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament at Jassowal on Friday.

The fourth-seeded Madkekar has been working hard without matching results for long, and when the chance came in the form of a favourable draw, he pounced on the opportunity in making his maiden singles final at this level.

Serving hard and striking the ball well, the 22-year-old Madkekar called the shots throughout, even as Tushar struggled to put together a meaningful challenge despite constant cheering from his faithful supporters.

Bristling with energy, a rare sight in the hot and humid conditions, and brimming with confidence, Madkekar broke Tushar in the first game even as the latter obliged with a doublefault on breakpoint.

One-way traffic

Thereafter, it was all one-way traffic as Madkekar won eight of the next nine games to ensure a smooth passage.

Tushar was striking the ball well, but lacked the consistency and tended to err in going for the big shots.

He fought briefly in the end, forcing two breakpoints on Madkekar’s serve in the ninth game of the second set, but the Mumbaikar played a fluent game that was nicely backed by the intimidating serves to pull through without any fuss.

In the final, Madkekar will be up against the top-seeded Aqeel Khan of Pakistan who tamed the Japanese work-horse Katsushi Fukuda with similar ease.

The 31-year-old Fukuda had expended considerable energy on way to the semifinals and was unable to serve properly after starting with two doublefaults.

On the other hand, Aqeel was quite at his best in front of the television cameras that had arrived from Jalandhar for ‘live’ coverage, and put up an authoritative fare, even if it meant putting the Japanese in his place rather unceremoniously.

Puraj-Vivek pair wins

In the doubles final, the second-seeded Purav Raja and Vivek Shokeen powered past Rohan Gajjar and Madkekar for the loss of three games to pocket $630 and 18 ATP points.

It was the second doubles title following Chennai in the current series for Shokeen. The runners-up collected $330 and 12 ATP points.

The results: Singles (semifinals): Aqeel Khan (Pak) bt Katsushi Fukuda (Jpn) 6-1, 6-2; Aditya Madkekar bt Tushar Liberhan 6-1, 6-3.