Karunuday Singh won his maiden singles title at this level, outplaying Vijayant Malik 6-4, 6-2 in the final of the $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Saturday.
With his strong serves and fluent strokes, not to forget his excellent mobility on court, eighth-seeded Karunuday started as the favourite despite it being his maiden final.
In a contest that lasted an hour and 17 minutes, Karunuday dominated the proceedings throughout except the sixth game of the first set when he was broken on the fourth breakpoint.
Clinical execution
Karunuday conceded only 15 points in all on his serve in the remaining eight service games. More than the impressive statistics, it was a clinical execution as Karunuday jumped into his shots with alacrity and unleashed them with considerable venom and remarkable accuracy. He could hit winners from any part of the court and almost had a 100 per cent strike rate with the put-aways.
In contrast, Vijayant struggled with his serve and had three doublefaults in getting broken in the third game of the first set.
He faced another breakpoint following a doublefault in the seventh and Karunuday spanked a forehand down the line winner.
In the second set, a couple of rousing winners from 30-30 saw Karunuday break Vijayant in the first game. He forced his opponent to make errors in the seventh game to win his second break of the set.
In the last game, Karunuday, at 30-30, came up with two big serves to wind up the show.
The winner collected $1300 and 18 ATP points and the runner-up, $900 and 10 ATP points.
