The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Vivek’s form continues, completes treble in style

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 29, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Vivek’s form continues, completes treble in style

Sports Reporter

Photo: M. Karunakaran

ALL SMILES: The winners and runners-up of The Hindu-Sportstar tennis tournament. —

Chennai: Vivek Reddy completed a treble at The Hindu-Sportstar tennis tournament at the Krishnan Tennis Centre on Sunday, adding the over-45 singles and doubles titles to the open singles title he had won on Saturday.

Such was Vivek’s rampant form that M.P. Shankar, the over-45 singles runner-up, jokingly alleged after a warm post-match handshake that he was only 36-years-old, and therefore ineligible to play the over-45s.

Shankar came close to avenging the singles loss in an absorbing doubles final, where he and Kartik Kailash came back from a set and a break down against Vivek and Murali Padmanabhan in the second to take the game to a super tie-break.

Touch and precision

Kartik lit up the second set with his touch and precision at the net, unsurprising skills for an orthopaedic surgeon.

At 8-6 in the super tie-break, however, his serve let him down. His double fault was followed by two emphatic volleys from Vivek to make it 9-8 in his team’s favour.

Eventually, after seesawing a couple of points longer, the match was sealed 6-3, 6-7(5), 13-11 with an angled winner from Murali, who doffed his cap even before he played the shot.

Fitting end

Ramanathan Krishnan, prior to handing out the trophies, said that the doubles match was a fitting end to the tournament, and that it approached the proportions of a Borg-McEnroe clash.

He then urged other clubs to follow KTC’s lead in organising tournaments for recreational players.

The results:

Singles (best-of-17 games): Over-45: Vivek Reddy bt M.P. Shankar 9-4; Over-60: T. Subramanian bt Muthukumarasamy 9-4.

Doubles: Over-45: Vivek Reddy / Murali Padmanaban bt M.P. Shankar / Kartik Kailash 6-3, 6-7(5), 13-11.

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

Sport