The Hindu : Bopanna too good for Liberhan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 26, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Bopanna too good for Liberhan

By Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI, FEB. 25. Rohan Bopanna provided a glimpse of the big bad world of men's tennis to his young opponent, as he overpowered the 17-year-old Tushar Liberhan 6-4, 6-2 in the pre-quarterfinals of the Syndicate Bank $10,000 ITF men's Futures tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Wednesday.

Tushar was brimming with confidence, having reached the quarterfinals in his only other Futures tournament. He had also done well in the junior circuit by winning the grade `II' event recently, for which his school, DPS, Vasant Kunj, had made an impressive felicitation in front of all the students. However, he understood the difference between junior tennis, and the real game, as he found Bopanna's big serves and blistering groundstrokes too hot to handle, after the young lad had got off the blocks briskly for a 3-0 lead.

Bopanna served a couple of double faults in that second game, but played with such power and accuracy thereafter that he lifted his game up by a few notches in blowing away the feeble challenge from across the net with clinical authority.

It was perhaps an inspiration for the Coorgi to play close to his best, as Mahesh Bhupathi made a surprise visit to the courts. Equally, Mahesh must have been happy to see Bopanna, a fellow Davis Cupper playing energetically.

Later Bopanna said that he was happy with the way he played and more importantly, with the way his sore arm stood the test when he put some more muscle behind his serve and strokes.

Incidentally, Bopanna was the only Indian player to make it to the quarterfinals in singles this day, and he will challenge the fifth-seeded Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan on the morrow.

Sunil Kumar was unable to fight the third-seeded Orest Tereshchuk of Ukraine on even terms, except for taking the second set when the opponent lost his concentration and played below par. Obviously, Tereshchuk had better serve and strokes. Sunil did not have much of a chance fighting the powerful opponent from the baseline. Yet, he stuck to his monotonous game, that lacked the punch and accuracy in bowing out rather meekly in the decider.

Ajay Ramaswami had his chances against the eighth-seeded Febi Widhiyanto of Indonesia, but lacked the consistency to stretch the contest into the decider, which had looked a distinct possibility at one stage. To be fair, Widhiyanto played a high quality game, and served big when he needed it. He also stroked quite fluently, deep into the corners to keep the Indian lad on his backfoot.

Nitin Kirtane could not enact his magic anymore and lost in straight sets to the seventh-seeded Xin-Yuan Yu of China.

The results:

Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Todor Enev (Bul) bt Dmitri Mazur (Uzb) 0-6, 6-2, 6-3; Febi Widhiyanto (Ina) bt Ajay Ramaswami 6-3, 7-6 (7-4); Orest Tereshchuk (Ukr) bt Sunil Kumar 6-1, 3-6, 6-1; Filip Urban (Pol) bt Yordan Kanev (Bul) 7-6 (15-13), 6-2; Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) bt Patrick Schmolzer (Aut) 6-4, 6-2; Rohan Bopanna bt Tushar Liberhan 6-4, 6-2; Xin-Yuan Yu (Chn) bt Nitin Kirtane 6-3, 6-4; Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi bt Sarvar Ikramov (Uzb) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) and Orest Tereshchuk (Ukr) bt Nitin Kirtane and Manoj Mahadevan 6-3, 4-6, 6-3; Murad Inoyatov and Dmitri Mazur (Uzb) bt Kamala Kannan and Vinod Sridhar 7-5, 5-7, 6-4; Prima Simpatiaji and Febi Widhiyanto (Ina) bt Rupesh Roy and Divij Sharan 6-2, 7-5; Mustafa Ghouse and Vishaal Uppal bt Shivang Mishra and Gurmehar Singh 6-4, 6-1.

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