The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Greul takes honours

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 14, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Greul takes honours

By Kamesh Srinivasan

GURGAON, NOV. 13. The third-seeded Simon Greul of Germany asserted his class with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over the fourth-seeded Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan in the final of the first leg in the ITF Satellite tennis circuit at the NTA Complex here on Saturday.

Serving and stroking with intensity, the 23-year-old German who had enjoyed a career-best ranking of 148 last year, blew away the challenge from the erratic Kedriouk in an hour and a half. The Kazakh was more busy banging his racquet on court, quite frustrated at his failed attempt to wriggle out of the firm grip of Greul.

It was Greul who called the shots in the first set with a break in the fifth game, but the competition was a lot better in the second set as Kedriouk managed to break back in the fourth game after being broken in the first.

However, Greul, playing an all-round game, broke the Kazakh in the seventh game of the second set and served out the next game with an ace to consolidate on the gains. Kedriouk could hardly move in the tenth game, and Greul served out the match at love.

"I am happy to have come and played the Satellite here. The whole year I have been playing the Challengers, competing in the qualifying event in most of them. I was not making many points. My friend Peter (Mayer-Tischer), ranked in the 600s wanted to play this Satellite. I had not seen India, and I prefer to play on clay, so I thought it would be a good idea to play this circuit", said a beaming Greul, after the final.

Lucky win

The 364th ranked Greul said that he was lucky to have won the semifinals against Sunil Kumar. The second-seeded Chandigarh lad had squandered a 5-0 lead in the first tie-break but lost his way from a position of strength.

"I was lucky. It was a close match. At times, you need the luck. The Indians are playing as if it is a hard court", said Greul.

Conceding that when you win you hardly find any problems in the conditions, Greul was quite considerate in saying that it would be unfair to expect European clay in India.

"It is a different climate and it is a different sand. At the beginning, the courts were very bad. Now they have improved and I hope it stays like this for the next two weeks'', said the German, quite pleased with his ability to master a strong field in trying conditions.

The winner collected $812.50 and 21 circuit points while the runner-up pocketed $562.50 and 15 circuit points.

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