The Hindu : Sport : Malik upsets fourth-seeded Prashant

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Malik upsets fourth-seeded Prashant

Special Correspondent

The Chandigarh lad gets off to a good start with a break in the second game
Sriram Balaji tames a fighting Ronak Manuja

NEW DELHI: Vijayant Malik played with renewed confidence on a quicker pair of feet as he knocked out the fourth-seeded Vijay Sundar Prashant 6-3, 6-4 in the pre-quarterfinals of the DSCL National men’s tennis championship at the DLTA Complex here on Wednesday.

Even as Prashant struggled to find his rhythm and range of strokes, the 18-year-old Malik served and stroked with punch and purpose to jump into the driver’s seat.

The Chandigarh lad got off to a good start with a break in the second game, and maintained the momentum with a calculated approach. Into the second, there was a better fare from Prashant, but Malik once again wrested the decisive advantage by breaking the Chennai lad in the seventh game.

The wiry Malik was serving very well, and thus it was tough for Prashant to fight any further or extend the contest.

Touch of assurance

In another exhibition of a high quality game, Sriram Balaji tamed a fighting Ronak Manuja with a touch of assurance.

Serving big and stroking with intelligence, a rare addition to his repertoire, Balaji was on a cruise in the first set, clinching the issue with a break in the second game.

However, Manuja put the stumbling blocks in the second set, by breaking the Coimbatore lad in the second game.

The 18-year-old Balaji was in such good form that he recovered his game immediately and broke back in the third game, and once again in the ninth to make it a straight-forward affair.

In capping an excellent performance, Balaji served out the match at love.

In the quarterfinals, Malik will have the unenviable task of locking horns with Aditya Madkekar while Balaji will meet the second-seeded Rohan Gide.

In the other two matches, top seed V. M. Ranjeet will meet Arjun Goutham while third seed P. C. Vignesh will be up against Kamala Kannan.

The results: Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Aditya madkekar bt Ketan Dhumal 6-0, 6-1; Vijayant Malik bt Vijay Sundar Prashant 6-3, 6-4; Sriram Balaji bt Ronak Manuja 6-3, 6-4; Rohan Gide bt Rahil Makharia 6-2, 6-4.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Vikram Reddy and Abhijeet Tiwari bt Vijay Sundar Prashant and V. M. Ranjeet 7-6(5), 3-6, 11-9; Pulkit Mishra and Ankit Sachdeva bt Arjun Goutham and Aditya Madkekar 6-3, 3-6, 10-8.

Mithun Murali and Vinod Sridhar bt Rohan Gide and Vijayant Malik 6-3, 1-6, 10-5; Yannick Nelord and Saurav Sukul bt P. C. Vignesh and Mohammad Fariz 6-4, 6-3.

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