The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : A day to forget for Aqeel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 16, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

A day to forget for Aqeel

By Amitabha Das Sharma

KOLKATA, MARCH 15. The opening round of the ONGC-ITF Futures' singles main draw turned out to be a double disaster for Aqeel Khan. The genial Davis Cupper from Pakistan, seeded second in the tournament, first lost a three-setter to qualifier Wang Cheng Hsieh of Chinese Taipei and then walked out of the court to find his purse, containing all his money and credit cards, pinched from his kit bag.

The day progressed to witness another unsavoury incident as American Adam Fass got involved in a verbal duel with some Indian players. Khan's loss was the only surprise on court while the other seeded players, fourth seed Vishal Uppal, sixth seed Nick Monroe of U.S. and seventh seed Vinod Sridhar, advance to the next round.

Among the other favoured names the youthful Karan Rastogi made short work of compatriot Gurmehar Singh while qualifier V.M. Ranjeet got the better of Rahil Syed in straight sets.

Khan, who figured in the Pakistan Davis Cup team which defeated Thailand earlier in the month, exposed his limitations on clay as he failed to get past Hsiesh, who is almost thousand ranks behind him.

Sluggish

Khan was in trouble right from the start. The Pakistani looked sluggish in his movements while his returns lacked the punch allowing the more fitter Hsieh dominate the rallies. The first set saw only one break, in the fifth game, when Khan made repeated service errors to let Hsieh escape with the game as Hsieh took the set.

The second set was more evenly fought as the two traded breaks for the tie-break to be enforced. Khan's experience helped him hold his nerve as he took the set, winning the tie-break 12-10.

The decider saw a battle of attrition as Hsieh showed better endurance and broke Khan in three successive games (fourth, sixth and eighth) to sweep the set and the match 6-4, 6-7(10) and 6-2, consuming two hours and 15 minutes.

Another three-setter later in the day saw seventh-seeded Vinod Sridhar stretched to his limits by qualifier Navdeep Singh. Singh, who beat Yew Ming Si of Malaysia in the qualifying final, played aggressively to put his fancied opponent under pressure.

Sridhar won the opener easily but Singh bounced back in the next set and broke Sridhar twice to draw level. The final set started with `Advantage Singh', who broke the seventh seeded southpaw in the very first game. Sridhar had to cull the best shots in his armoury to salvage the break back in the fourth game before he defeated his unseeded opponent with the second break in the 10th game.

Bitter incident

The penultimate encounter of the first round between Adam Fass and Ashutosh Singh saw a bitter incident. Fass, under severe pressure in the decider, created a ruckus apparently mouthing obscenities at his opponent and also shouted at the chair umpire, disputing certain line-calls before he managed to win the third set in the tie-breaker.

He later picked up an altercation with some of the Indian players standing nearby. The tournament director, Jaidip Mukerjea, said that he heard about the incident and would discuss the matter with the tournament referee before taking any decision.

The results (Indians unless specified):

Singles (first round): Adam Fass (U.S.) bt Ashutosh Singh 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(1); Peter Mayer Tischer (Ger) bt Arindam Dutta 6-0, 6-0; Vishal Uppal bt Tetsuhiko Yamamoto (Jpn) 4-6, 6-2, 6-4; Karan Rastogi bt Gurmehar Singh 6-1, 6-2; Wei Tai Liu (Tpe) bt Kai Lung Chang (Tpe) 6-4, 6-1; Nick Monroe (U.S.) bt Hayato Furukawa (Jpn) 6-0, 7-6(2); Vinod Sridhar bt Navdeep Singh 6-4, 4-6, 6-4; V.M. Ranjeet bt Rahil Syed 6-4, 6-2; Andrei Somov (Rus) bt Oleg Ogorodov (Uzb) 7-6(7), 7-6 (7); Matthew Hanlin (Gbr) bt Ajai Selvaraj 6-4, 6-2; Wang Cheng Hsieh (Tpe) bt Aqeel Khan (Pak) 6-4, 6-7(10), 6-2.

Doubles (first round): Wang Cheng Hsieh & Kai Lung Chang (Tpe) bt Jitin Bishnoi & Gursharan Singh 6-2, 7-6(3); Chris Kwon & Nick Monroe (U.S.) bt Kamala Kannan & Ravishankar Pathanjali 7-6(4), 6-3; Jaco Mathew & Vinod Sridhar bt Arindam Dutta & Saurav Sukul 6-1, 6-3; Sunil Kumar Sipaeya & Peter Mayer Tischer (Ger) bt Rupesh Roy & Saurabh Singh 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(6).

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