The Hindu : Sport : Nam to meet Satschko in final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 23, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport

Nam to meet Satschko in final

Principal Correspondent

KOLKATA: Unseeded Nam Hyun-Woo of Korea continued to show good form as he downed sixth seeded David Savic of Serbia to move into the singles final of the Coal India ITF men’s Futures here on Friday.

Nam, who ousted two seeds on his way, will meet top-seeded Alexander Satschko of Germany in the final on Saturday. The German player beat Tsung-Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei in straight sets in the other semifinal.

Vijay-Kadryuk win

Vijay Kannan kept India’s name in the title list winning the doubles final, partnering Alexey Kadryuk of Kazakhstan. Kannan, who works with ONGC in Chennai, and Kadryuk prevailed over the Chinese Taipei pair of Hua-En Ghang and Hsien-Yin Peng in straight sets, both of which were decided in tie-breakers.

India-Kazakh pair, seeded second in the doubles draw, had previously defeated the all-India combination of Vinod Sridhar and Vishnu Vardhan in super-tiebreakers in the semifinals earlier in the day.

Long rallies

Nam, who upset second seeded Guillermo Alcaide of Spain in the pre-quarters, was in great touch against Savic. The Korean excelled in a baseline game and wore out the defensive Serbian playing long rallies. Nam made the most of Savic’s loose play to won the first set (6-1).

In the second set, Savic led 3-0, breaking Nam in the second game. But the Korean worked his way through and neutralised the break in the fifth game before holding his own serve to make it 3-3. The Korean, showing better fitness, got the decisive break in the ninth game for a 5-4 lead as the Serbian continued to make unforced errors. Nam won the second set 6-4.

The final will be a keen affair as both Satschko and Nam have not dropped a set in the tournament.

The 28-year-old German, who won one ITF title last year reaching six finals, will be the favourite against the 22-year-old Korean.

The results (prefix denotes seeding): Singles (semifinals): 1-Alexander Satschko (Ger) bt Tsung-Hua Yang 6-3, 6-3; Hyun-woo Nam (Kor) bt 6-David Savic (Srb) 6-1, 6-4.

Doubles (final): 2-Vijay Kannan (Ind) & Alexey Kedryuk (Kaz) bt Huai-En Chang & Hsien-Yin Peng (Tpe) 7-6(7), 7-6(2).

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport