Vishnu Vardhan was at his best in the climax, smashing two successive aces to cap a well-deserved 6-7(5), 6-1, 7-6(4) victory over the second-seeded Karan Rastogi in the semifinals of the $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the Noida Sports Complex, Sector-21, on Friday.
In a gripping contest that spanned nearly three hours, the 23-year-old Vardhan rode on the strength of his serve and fired in 27 aces. It was his second successive victory over Rastogi, after he had lost to him in their first two meetings, in the ITF circuit in the last four years.
It was Rastogi who controlled the proceedings initially as Vardhan was quite hesitant both with his strokes and the serves. Rastogi led 5-3 with a break in the eighth game of the first set, but dropped serve at love in the next game.
In the subsequent tie-break, Vardhan saved two setpoints at 3-6 with strong serves, but Rastogi wound up the set with an overhead.
In the second Vardhan was a lot more determined and he dictated terms with his explosive serves. With Rastogi allowing his own game to dip a bit, the set was sewn up in a jiffy.
The decider took almost as long as the first two sets and it was a hard fight in tough weather conditions though a cool breeze did help matters a bit. Vardhan was in trouble straightaway as he faced three breakpoints at 0-40 in the second game.
He saved them with his smart game, and then took a medical time-out at deuce as he felt giddy. After getting ice treatment on his head and neck, Vardhan was a changed man.
The third-seed had a chance to serve out the match in the 12th game after he had broken Rastogi in the 11th. However, Vardhan failed to convert three matchpoints and dropped serve on the second breakpoint.
Things were at an even keel till Vardhan delivered those two aces at 5-4 in the decisive tie-break to make his second successive final, following the title last week in Chandigarh.
Vardhan was possibly relieved to hear that the top-seeded Danai Udomchoke of Thailand, having played eight weeks on the trot, crashed to a 6-1, 6-1 defeat in 39 minutes to the fourth-seeded Kim Young-Jun of Korea in the other semifinal.
The results: Singles (semifinals): Kim Young-Jun (Kor) bt Danai Udomchoke (Tha) 6-1, 6-1; Vishnu Vardhan bt Karan Rastogi 6-7(5), 6-1, 7-6(4).
Doubles (final): Christopher Rungkat (Ina) and Kittiphong Wachiramanowong (Tha) bt Junn Mitsuhashi (Jpn) and Danai Udomchoke (Tha) 6-7(1), 6-3, 10-6.
