The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Jaco Mathew ousts Ghouse

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 08, 2004

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Sport - Tennis

Jaco Mathew ousts Ghouse

By A. Joseph Antony

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 7. Third-ranked Mustafa Ghouse became the lone seed to tumble out of the International Tennis Federation Futures' first round, capitulating to fellow Indian Jaco Mathew 6-7(1), 2-6 at the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh complex on Tuesday. Compatriots Vinod Sridhar, seeded second and Vijay Kannan (6) were stretched to three sets in opening round action.

Early in the day, Hyderabad's Vishal Punna played his typical serve and volley game, his delightful drops doing the most damage to Holland's Ordan Van Der Werf. Mixing his shots well, Punna kept the Dutchman unsettled right through their contest, the former winning 6-1, 6-4.

His younger brother Vikas held out grimly to subdue Sri Lanka's Renouk Wijemane 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.

Games went with serve until Ravishankar Pathanjali broke Gvidas Sabckis in the fourth game of the first set. The Lithuanian broke back in the very next game, but his double fault at deuce in the 10th hardly helped his cause.

Pathanjali's luck ran high too, a net cord fetching him the first set. After a trade of breaks in the second and third games, a dejected Sabckis hurled his racquet in the fourth, spilt the sixth and made his exit soon after.

A fairly long power cut in the morning left Chief Referee Nitin Kannamwar unable to make the announcements, even as he raced against time to complete the qualifiers and bring the event, disrupted by rain, back on track.

The results (all players Indian, unless indicated otherwise): Singles (first round): Jaco Mathew bt Mustafa Ghouse 7-6(1), 6-2, Ajay Ramaswami bt Arindam Datta 6-1, 6-2, Vishal Punna bt Ordan Van Der Werf (Ned) 6-1, 6-4, Vinod Sridhar bt Wang-Cheng Hseih (Tpe) 6-0, 5-7, 6-3, Vijay Kannan bt Ashutosh Singh 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(9), Kai Lung Chang (Tpe) bt Dominik Stoeckler (Sui) 6-2, 6-3, Ravishankar Pathanjali bt Gvidas Sabckis (Lit) 6-4, 6-1, Nitin Kirtane bt Yoann Villar (Bel) 6-2, 6-3, Vikas Punna bt Renouk Wijemane (Sri) 7-5, 6-3, A.R. Anand Kumar bt Ajai Selvaraj 7-5, 6-3, Aqeel Khan (Pak) bt V.M. Ranjeet 7-6 (5), 6-3, Kedar Tembe bt Syed Rahil 6-2, 6-4, Tai-Wei Liu (Tpe) bt Rupesh Roy 6-4, 6-4, Chris Kwon (USA) bt Kaushik Raju 6-2, 6-2.

Qualifiers: J. Vishnu Vardhan bt Kunal Pawa (Sin) 6-0, 6-2, Dai Chiao Lin (Tpe) bt Martin Sayer (Hkg) 6-0, 7-5, V.M. Ranjeet bt Harshana Godmana (Sri) 6-2, 6-1, Rupesh Roy bt L.S. Ananthabhaskar 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, Ajai Selvaraj bt Yannick Nelord 6-3, 7-6(9), Kaushik Raju bt Sandeep Choudhary 7-5, 5-1 (by default).

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