Karan Rastogi downed Rupesh Roy 7-6(3), 6-4 to move into the quarterfinals of the $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament here on Wednesday.
Roy tended to be erratic on crucial points as he lost his focus owing to a running duel with the chair umpire over close line calls.
Second-seeded Rastogi, who had lost his only previous meeting against Roy on the Futures circuit last year in Kolkata, jumped to a 5-3 lead with a break in the eighth game. However, Rupesh stepped up his game to make a fight of it, and Rastogi had to save as many as four breakpoints in the 11th game to hold serve, after having dropped serve in the ninth.
It was a lot more smooth for Rastogi in the second set as he broke Roy in the third and seventh games to cruise home.
He will meet sixth-seeded Julien Dubail of Belgium in the quarterfinals.
In another lively encounter, V.M. Ranjeet worked his way past lucky loser Mark Alexander Kepler of Germany in three sets, winning a decisive break early in the decider. He will face fourth-seeded Young-Jun Kim of Korea.
The champion last week in Chandigarh, Vishnu Vardhan proved too good for Kittiphong Wachiramanowong of Thailand, and raced away for the loss of four games. He will be challenged by the Taipei lad, Hsin-Han Lee, who saved four set-points in the second set tie-break to outwit Kaza Vinayak Sharma in straight sets.
Vijayant Malik was the other Indian to make the quarterfinals and did so at the expense of Marc Fornell-Mestres of Spain. Malik led 6-1, 1-0 when the Spaniard retired, complaining of abdominal cramps.
Incidentally, Mestres had given a walkover to Yuki Bhambri in the semifinals last week.
Mestres, however, returned in the afternoon with Mike Vermeer of Luxembourg to beat the finalists last week, the second-seeded Hsin-Han Lee and Bumpei Sato in straight sets in the doubles quarterfinals.
Malik will have the chance to settle scores against Danai Udomchoke who had beaten him rather easily in a similar tournament earlier this season.
The results: Pre-quarterfinals: Danai Udomchoke (Tha) bt An Jae-Sung (Kor) 6-0, 2-6, 6-4; Vijayant Malik bt Marc Fornell-Mestres (Esp) 6-1, 1-0 (retd); Kim Young-Jun (Kor) bt Junn Mitsuhashi (Jpn) 6-4, 6-0; V.M. Ranjeet bt Mark Alexander Kepler (Ger) 6-2, 4-6, 6-3; Hsin-Han Lee (Tpe) bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-4, 7-6(6); Vishnu Vardhan bt Kittiphong Wachiramanowong (Tha) 6-1, 6-3; Julien Dubail (Bel) bt Laurent-Olivier Daxhelet (Bel) 5-7, 6-3, 7-5; Karan Rastogi bt Rupesh Roy 7-6(3), 6-4.
Doubles (quarterfinals): Sriram Balaji & Ashutosh Singh bt Vijayant Malik & Sunil Kumar 6-3, 3-6, 10-8; Christopher Rungkat (Ina) & Kittiphong Wachiramanowong (Tha) bt Rupesh Roy & Vivek Shokeen 3-6, 6-3, 10-4; Junn Mitsuhashi (Jpn) & Danai Udomchoke (Tha) bt P.C. Vignesh & Vijay Sundar Prashanth 7-6(4), 6-2; Marc Fornell-Mestres (Esp) & Mike Vermeer (Lux) bt Hsin-Han Lee (Tpe) & Bumpei Sato (Jpn) 6-3, 7-6(5).
