France’s Tak Khunn Wang played a consistent baseline game to outlast second seed N. Sriram Balaji 6-2, 7-6(3) and enter the quarterfinals of the MCC-S.R. Subramaniam Memorial ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament on Wednesday. Tak meets sixth-seeded Vijayant Malik next.
There was little that Sriram could do. When the Indian played from the backcourt, he was outplayed and when he chose to volley, the Frenchman passed him quite frequently though some of Sriram’s volleys were top class.
There were phases when Sriram did match Tak from the backcourt with his attractive and effective backhand but his forehand turned out to be the weak armour today. After trading breaks in the seventh and eighth games of the second set, Sriram had two set points in the 10th game on Tak’s serve, but couldn’t convert both. In the tiebreaker, Tak took a 5-3 lead and finished the match with an excellent first serve.
Brazil’s Thales Turini, the fourth seed, was rather fortunate to eke out a 7-5, 6-7(8), 7-6(8) win over an error-prone Mats Moraing of Germany. The German, a qualifier, couldn’t cash in on the three set points he had on his serve in the ninth game of the second set, and two match points in the third set tiebreaker.
Correction: It was Caio Silva of Brazil who conceded his match to Thales Turini and not as reported on Tuesday.
The results (Indians unless otherwise mentioned, pre-quarterfinals):
Singles: Victor Crivoi (Rou) bt Laslo Urrutia Fuentes (Chi) 6-2, 6-1; Elwin Antony bt Vivek Shokeen 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-2; Thales Turini (Bra) bt Mats Moraing (Ger) 7-5, 6-7(8), 7-6(8); V.M. Ranjeet bt Mohd. Assri Merzuki (Mas) 6-4, 6-2; N. Vijay Prashanth bt Sidharth Rawat 6-2, 6-4; Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Giulio Torroni (Ita) 6-0, 6-2; Vijayant Malik bt Tom Schonenberg (Ger) 6-4, 6-1; Tak Khunn Wang (Fra) bt N. Sriram Balaji 6-2, 7-6(3).
Doubles (quarterfinals): Jui-Chen Hung (Tpe) & Petar Tomic (Srb) bt Ramkumar Ramanathan & V.M. Ranjeet 4-6, 6-3 (13-11); Ting Yu Chuang & Chih-Jen Ho (Tpe) bt Augusto Laranja & Thales Turini (Bra) 6-3, 2-6 (10-6); N. Sriram Balaji & Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Elwin Antony & Fariz Mohd. 6-1, 4-6 (10-7).
