A nagging pain in his shoulders left Prajnesh Gunneswaran to struggle and restrict himself from displaying the ruthless efficiency with which he had despatched his rivals over the last four days.
Yet, the Chennai-based top seed showed remarkable resilience to overcome the injury and a fight adversary in Sriram Balaji 7-5, 6-3 before lifting the men’s singles title of the Indian Oil-ITF Futures tennis tournament at the TTC courts here on Saturday.
It came as a real surprise when Prajnesh proved to be way off the mark initially as little was known about the injury that slowed him down considerably.
Prajnesh slowly raised the tempo of his game when Sriram turned erratic with the drop volleys which had helped him turn the heat on the top seed. The left-handed Prajnesh fought back brilliantly, and the tremendous staying power was finally rewarded as Sriram faltered with his serve in the seventh game.
Prajnesh was attended to by a team of physiotherapists at the end of the set, but was still quite visibly in pain at times in the second, in which he was able to come up with a better display.
Sriram, at the other end, tried his best to avoid the inevitable as he upped the speed of the game, but ended up committing far too many unforced errors.
The results: Men: Final: Prajnesh Gunneswaran bt Sriram Balaji 7-5, 6-3.
