The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Irwin knocks out Sunil Kumar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004

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Sport - Tennis

Irwin knocks out Sunil Kumar

By Kamesh Srinivasan

INDORE, JUNE 9. Unfancied Richard Irwin of Britain knocked out the top-seeded Sunil Kumar 6-3, 7-5, while Prahlad Srinath played a solid all-court game in ousting the third-seeded Vinod Sridhar 7-5, 6-4 in the pre-quarterfinals of the Shimla ITF Satellite tennis tournament at the Indore Tennis Club courts here on Wednesday.

Irwin served big and stroked with intensity in overpowering the talented left-hander Sunil Kumar, who had reached the semifinals of a Challenger in Fergana last month.

The athletic Briton played with determination, especially after clinching the first set following a break in the fourth game. He got an early break in the second set and fought back to break Sunil decisively in the 11th game of the second set, after the Chandigarh lad looked ready to take the set into the decider, having regained his confident touch.

It was an exhilarating exhibition of strokeplay from both the players, and the Briton wound up the show with a forehand winner, pumped both his fists in obvious joy, on a task well accomplished. Irwin will meet the eighth-seeded Ajay Ramaswami who had little trouble in outplaying Saurav Panja, who played a brand of tennis, stroking gently, that has been forgotten in this era.

The 31-year-old Srinath was a class act against Vinod Sridhar. Though Srinath has not played the circuit after November last year, he served with fire and stroked with craft, hitting delightful backhand winners that left his opponent dumbfounded at times.

In fact, Sridhar was quite exasperated early on, as Srinath teased him with short balls, and the Chennai lad kept throwing his racquet around in disgust, only to be reminded by the referee that his act may fetch him a code violation. Sridhar controlled himself later, but he could not control the match, as Srinath dictated the flow with his sharp game.

Srinath will meet Kamala Kannan, who overpowered the fifth-seeded Mait Kunnap of Estonia in the last two sets after having lost the first in the tie-break. Kamala Kannan won 6-7 (3-7), 6-0, 6-0.

Once he read the opponent's serve better and played his strokes freely, Kannan proved too good for the Estonian, who had no clue as to how to stop the slump.

Kannan won the second and third sets in 47 minutes in all, and conceded only 17 points in all in those two sets. Once he converted the fourth gamepoint in a long-drawn first game of the third set, Kannan fired his way into his maiden quarterfinals at this level.

The results:

Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Richard Irwin (GBR) bt Sunil Kumar 6-3, 7-5; Ajay Ramaswami bt Saurav Panja 6-1, 6-2; Vijay Kannan bt Pathanjali Ravishankar 6-4, 6-2; David Brewer (GBR) bt Vishaal Uppal 6-2, 6-4; Kamala Kannan bt Mait Kunnap (Est) 6-7 (3-7), 6-0, 6-0; Prahlad Srinath bt Vinod Sridhar 7-5, 6-4; Joshua Goodall (GBR) bt Aqeel Khan (Pak) 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (7-2); Norikazu Sugiyama (Jpn) bt Jaco Mathew 6-4, 7-6 (7-5); First round: Vishaal Uppal bt Gurmehar Singh 7-5, 4-6, 7-5.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Saurabh Kohli and Sunil Kumar bt Atsufumi Yoshikawa (Jpn) and Hiu Tung Yu (HK) 1-6, 7-5, 6-1; David Brewer and Richard Irwin (GBR) bt Jaco Mathew and Kamala Kannan 6-3, 6-4; Norikazu Sugiyama (Jpn) and Vijay Kannan bt Mait Kunnap (Est) and Prahlad Srinath 7-5, 6-1.

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