Sunday, Jun 15, 2003
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Tennis
By Our Special Correspondent
The two, playing a consistent and crafty game, emerged as the boys' and girls' under-18 singles champions respectively in the Embassy-AITA Super Series championship at the Sadhashivanagar Club courts here today. The 17-year-old Siddarth from Pune, took a shade under an hour to dispose of top-seeded Jeevan Nedunchezian 6-3, 6-2. Earlier third-seeded Preethi drubbed fourth-seeded Meghana Paritala of Andhra Pradesh 6-3, 6-2. Seventh-seeded Siddarth was very impressive in his outing against the sixth-seeded S. Prateek in the semifinals on Friday and Prateek, who was a double crown winner in the Championship Series event here last week, sputtered to a stop against his hard hitting rival. The story was no different today, as Siddarth went for his strokes, belting big forehand winners and serving consistently well throughout the match. He showed good reflexes as he out hit Jeevan in racy rallies. Jeevan had some close calls earlier in the tournament, but the Chennai lad, who can hit hard, ran into trouble with his serve in this encounter. Double faulting often, he was unable to recover lost ground despite earnest efforts. Jeevan looked set for a romp in the first set as he blitzed to a 3-0 lead. But Siddarth clawed his way back, matching his rival stroke for stroke. And as Jeevan began to falter with his serve and returns, Siddarth, belting his groundstrokes with precision, took six games in a row to take the set. In the second set, Siddarth broke early and went up 3-0, before his rival struck back in the fourth game and then narrowed the gap to 2-3. Jeevan, however, failed to cash in on that break and dropped serve again in the seventh game. Siddarth, who led 5-2, made no mistake as he served out the set and match in style. S. Preethi from Coimbatore is in pretty good nick and the 16-year-old Stanes School student took her second Super Series title of the season, after her triumph at Pune earlier. At Pune Preethi defeated Meghana in the semifinals and certainly enjoyed the psychological edge in the final here. Preethi played a positive game, hitting some superb top-spin winners on the forehand and made very few unforced errors, while Meghana struggled to get going. The AP lass did impress with some of her returns, but she was rather inconsistent and Preethi set a hot pace. Preethi, with a single break (second game), took the first set 6-3. It really boosted Preethi's morale to a new high as she went for big shots in the second set and raced to a 4-0 lead and there was simply no looking back as she shut out the set and match 6-2. Preethi also completed a double, winning the girls' under-18 doubles title partnering Sandri Gangotri of AP. They beat the Karnataka pair of Asha Nandakumar and Varsha Shivashankar 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. Saketh Sai and Vijaysunder Prashanth of Tamil Nadu bagged the boys' doubles title, beating the Maharashtra pair of Rohan Gide and Tejesvi Rao 6-4, 7-5. Kannada film star Vishnuvaradhan and Jitu Virwani, CEO of the Embassy Group, which sponsored the event, presided and gave away the prizes. The results (all finals): Boys under-18 singles: Siddarth Patil (Mah) bt Jeevan Nedunchezian (TN) 6-3, 6-2. Doubles: M. Saketh Sai/Vijay Sunder Prashanth (TN) bt Rohan Gide/Tejesvi Rao (Mah) 6-4, 7-5. Girls under-18 singles: S. Preethi (TN) bt Meghana Paritala (AP) 6-3, 6-2. Doubles: S. Preethi (TN)/Sandri Gangotri (AP) bt Asha Nandakumar/Varsha Shivashankar (Kar) 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.
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