Ramakrishna is better prepared this time having lost in the final of the last edition held in 2010. With a new partner in Aaron Avelino Perreira, he aims to scale the summit of the junior (u-21) section of the National beach volleyball championship here.
On Thursday, the pair from Goa overcame Andhra's Vimayendran and Yashwanth 21-11, 21-17 in a quarterfinal encounter. The Goan duo will meet the Tamil Nadu pair of Madhan Kumar and Shaul Hameed in the semifinals. Madhan and Shaul defeated Baranidharan and Saravanan of Tamil Nadu 21-18, 21-19.
The Goa pair breezed past its opponent in the first set. The blocks of Perreira was near-perfect and aided by neat setting by Ramakrishna, the duo enjoyed a lead of 14-9 and 17-10. Vimayendran and Yashwanth couldn't match the speed and the athleticism of the Goans.
However, in the second set, the Andhra pair fought back admirably. Ramakrishna wasn't flawless at the net despite Perreira setting well. With the scores at 15-each, Ramakrishna produced some fine smashes at the net. After racing to a 19-17 lead, it closed out the match in half-an-hour.
Earlier, Tamil Nadu's top pair of Rajkumar and Madhusudhanan blunted the challenge of Siljo and Sujith Prakashan 21-14, 21-12. They will meet Gunabalan and Madhavan in the other clash.
The results (quarterfinals):
U-21: Boys: TN 3 (Gunabalan & Madhavan) bt AP 1 (A. Shankar & V. Shankar) 21-13, 21-12; TN 1 (Rajkumar & Madhusudanan) bt Kerala 1 (Siljo & Sujith Prakashan) 21-14, 21-12; TN 2 (Madhan Kumar & Shaul Hameed) bt TN 4 (Baranidharan & Saravanan) 21-18, 21-19; Goa (Ramakrishnan & Aaron Avelino Perreira) bt AP 4 (Vimayendran & Yashwanth) 21-11, 21-17.
Men: AP 1 (Ravindra Reddy & Kasi Viswanath) bt AP 3 (Krishna Prasad & Mahendra Varma) 21-17, 21-12; TN 2 (Mohan & Pradeep John) bt TN 3 (Ramamoorthy & Nixon) 22-20, 18-21, 21-19; Indian Railways 1 (Mohd. Jameeluddin & Sudarshan Varma) bt Indian Railways 2 (Prabhakaran & Balaganesh) 21-16, 21-8.
