Ramkumar Ramanathan of Tamil Nadu and Sharmada Balu of Karnataka won the under-18 boys' and girls' titles in the adidas-MCC National junior and sub-junior tennis championship on Saturday.
In the under-14 category, Punjab's Fatehdeep Singh and Maharashtra's Rituja Bhosle emerged winners.
Defending champion Ramkumar, seeded sixth, retained his title with a 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 win over top-seeded Mohit Mayur. Ramkumar began with a blaze of winners, blanking his opponent in the first set. Mohit garnered an extra break in the second set and held his advantage to win it 6-4.
The third set went on serve and at 2-3, Ramkumar took medical timeout with pain in his right leg. With the injured player hobbling about, all Mohit had to do was keep the ball in play.
Unforced errors
But, a spate of unforced errors allowed Ramkumar to hold serve (3-3) and then break Mohit for a 4-3 lead. Breaks were swapped again before the defending champion held serve to close out the match 6-4 in the third set, collapsing to the ground as Mohit dunked a backhand into the net.
In the boys' under-14 final, Garvit went a set up against Fatehdeep, but lost control as the latter began to find the lines with his groundstrokes. Fatehdeep restored parity, nailing the second set 6-3, and then surged to 3-0 in the decider, winning it 6-2.
In the girls' under-18 final, second-seeded Sharmada Balu won the first set in a tie-breaker and then ran through Aishwarya Agarwal, the sixth seed, in the second.
Easy victory
The girls' under-14 final was a no-contest as second-seeded Rituja Bhosle thrashed top-seeded Sneha Devi Reddy 6-3, 6-1.
Dhruti Venugopal, S.K. Mukund (under-14), Eetee Mehta and A.K. Parthasarathi (under-18) were declared the most promising players of the event.
Tushar Goculdas, Director, sales and marketing, adidas, and M.A. Alagappan, President, Tamil Nadu Tennis Association, gave away the prizes. adidas, the title sponsor, also awarded scholarships to the winners.
The results (finals): Boys:U-18: Ramkumar Ramanathan (TN) bt Mohit Mayur (TN) 6-0, 4-6, 6-4.
U-14: Fatehdeep Singh (Pun) bt Garvit Batra (Del) 4-6, 6-3, 6-2;
Girls':U-18: Sharmada Balu (Kar) bt Aishwarya Agarwal (MP) 7-6(3), 6-3.
U-14: Rituja Bhonsle (Mah) bt Sneha Devi Reddy (Mah) 6-3, 6-1.
Semifinals: Boys: U-18: Mohit bt Vinod Gowda (Kar) 6-1, 6-4; Ramkumar bt A.K. Parthasarathi 6-1, 6-0.
U-14: Garvit bt Sumit Nagal (Del) 6-1, 6-3; Fatehdeep bt Sahil Deshmukh (Mah) 6-4, 6-2.
Girls: U-18: Aishwarya bt Eetee Mehta (Guj) 7-5, 6-1; Sharmada bt Sharan Sanchana Paul (TN) 6-2, 6-4.
U-14: Sneha bt Dhruti Venugopal (Mah) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; Rituja bt Simran Kaur Sethi (Del) 6-3, 6-2.
