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Ebelthite & Groth pair triumphs

Special Correspondent

New Delhi: Colin Ebelthite and Samuel Groth of Australia combined nicely to pip Mohammed Al Ghareeb of Kuwait and Ilia Marchenko of Ukraine 2-6, 7-6(5), 10-8 in an entertaining doubles final of the SAIL Open $50,000 Challenger tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Friday.

The title was worth 55 ATP points and $3100 for the Aussies who had broken Rajeev Ram in the seventh game of the first set and the first game of the second to to record a straight forward finish earlier in the semifinals against the Indo-US combination.

The runner-up had to be content with 38 ATP points and shared $1,800. The semifinalists collected 24 ATP points and $1,080.

The singles semifinals in the morning had also proved anti-climactic as the top-seeded Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei and the seventh-seeded Brendan Evans of the U.S. cruised through without facing much resistance.

Lu was too good for the fourth-seeded Go Soeda as he put his compact game on display in dismissing the Japanese with ease, breaking him in the sixth game of the first set and at will three times in the second.

In the other semifinals, Kristian Pless of Denmark conceded at 30-40 on his serve in the second game, with an upset stomach, in a match that lasted six minutes.

Pless, the former world No.1 junior, had pulled through the first three rounds in three sets each in tough conditions, and that had possibly led to a shortage of energy.

The results:

Singles: Semifinals: Yen-Hsun Lu (Tpe) bt Go Soeda (Jpn) 6-3, 6-1; Brendan Evans (US) bt Kristian Pless (Den) 1-0 (retd.)

Doubles: Final: Colin Ebelthite and Samuel Groth bt Mohammed Al Ghareeb (Kuw) and Ilia Marchenko (Ukr) 2-6, 7-6(5), 10-8; Semifinals: Colin Ebelthite and Samuel Groth bt Rajeev Ram (US) and Prakash Amritraj 6-4, 6-4.

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