Nitin Kumar Sinha, the unseeded 15-year-old from West Bengal, overcame top seed Paramveer Singh Bajwa in three tough sets 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 to enter the semifinals of the Ozone Group ITF juniors tournament on Thursday.
Continuing his excellent form over the past two weeks, where he also made the adidas junior National final, Nitin withstood a spirited second-set assault from Paramveer before eventually prevailing. He now meets Roop Singh Bhullar who also won a three-setter against fifth seed Anant Gokhale.
The match went on for over two hours, and after the second set it seemed the momentum was with Paramveer.
But Nitin broke early in the third. On the top seed’s serve, leading 3-1, he had two chances to go double-break up, but squandered both.
Service game to the rescueEven as he failed to take advantage, his service game rescued him. He was stretched by his opponent, particularly in the sixth game, when he faced a break point, but held on. On those occasions when Paramveer tried to overpower him, Nitin employed the slice to take the pace off and mix things up.
In the day’s other matches, boys’ fourth seed Aryan Goveas beat Sahil Deshmukh in straight sets and now goes on to meet sixth seed V. Gnana Bhaskar who too had an easy outing against Ishaque Eqbal.
In the girls’ section, top seed Vanshika Sawhney and third seed Jennifer Luikham progressed to the semifinals while the second and fourth seeds, Devanshi Bhimjiyani and Zeel Desai, lost.
The results (quarterfinals, Indians unless specified):
Boys: Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Paramveer Singh Bajwa 6-4, 2-6, 6-4; Rana Roop Singh Bhullar (Nor) bt Aditya Anant Gokhale 1-6, 6-3, 6-3; Aryan Goveas bt Sahil Deshmukh 6-3, 6-3; V. Gnana Bhaskar bt Ishaque Eqbal 6-1, 6-3.
Girls: Vanshika Sawhney bt Napharat Sawangkaew (Tha) 6-2, 2-6, 6-2; Jennifer Luikham bt Yexin Ma (Chn) 6-3, 6-3; Nidhi Surapaneni bt Zeel Desai 6-2, 7-6(8); Nandini Sharma bt Devanshi Bhimjiyani 5-7, 6-1, 6-2.
