The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Prakash in last eight

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Thursday, Mar 31, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

Prakash in last eight

By Kalyan Ashok

BANGALORE, MARCH 30. Prakash Amritraj remained the sole Indian hope in the $15,000 Futures tennis championship at the end of the second round at the KSLTA Stadium here on Wednesday.

The three Indian challengers — Vishaal Uppal,Vinod Sridhar and Rohan Bopanna — made their exits in quick succession after Prakash overpowered Amerrican challenger, Nick Monroe 6-0, 6-3 in 68 minutes to advance to the quarterfinals.

Prakash calls Monroe "a good pal'' and the American certainly came under a `friendly' fire on a hot and humid afternoon. Prakash seemed to carry from where left off on Tuesday. He broke Monroe at love in the first game and that set the tone for the lop-sided set that Prakash wrapped up swiftly. Monroe gambled on pace and failed miserably in the set and Prakash came up with stunning winners to unsettle his erratic rival.

Monore, ranked 541, raised the level of his game by a couple of notches in the second set and he hit some sweetly timed volley winners and often passed Prakash after the Indian raced to a 2-0 lead. Monroe, struck back in the third game, firing past Prakash with his double handed backhand returns. The two traded breaks for the next two games and Prakash fared poorly in the fifth game, which he dropped without taking a point.

With Monroe levelling scores at 3-all, holding the serve in the sixth, the pressure was on Prakash. The Indian, however coolly kept his serve intact and went up 4-3. Monroe dropped the game in the eighth with two sloppy returns and two double faults, which put Prakash right back on top. Prakash made no mistake as he served for the match and blasted two aces to decisively settle the issue.

"There was a bit of pressure in the second set, that was because I wavered after winning eight straight games in the match. He did pass me a couple of times, but that didn't worry me much as I knew, I could make it in the end", said Prakash, who now meets Jasper Smit of the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

Among the other Indians, Rohan Bopanna, showed a semblance of fightback against the third seed Simon Greul of Great Britain after dropping the first set at 0-6. But Briton, who served strongly and kept hitting his returns hard and deep, was too consistent for the local lad and won 6-0, 6-4. There was a bit of drama in the second game of the second set, after Greul, after playing a point claimed that line umpire had ruled out a return. But the chair umpire, Ms. Payal and Chief referee Puneet Gupta stuck to their guns.

Bad luck for Vishaal

Vishaal Uppal had the misfortune of running into the topseed, Aisam Quereshi of Pakistan. Vishaal, as usual, impressed with his volleys and showed some signs of tenacity in the second set, but Quereshi with his all court display, prevailed 6-2, 6-4.

The big built Croatian, Ivan Cerovic wore down Vinod Sridhar in a sapping baseline duel at 6-3,7-6 (7-3) in 72 minutes.

Kamil Capkovic of Slovakia stopped the fourth seed, Sebastian Dftiz of Germay 4-6,7-6 (7-5), 6-2 and made the last eight round.

The results: Singles (second round): Prakash Amritraj bt Nick Monroe (U.S.) 6-0, 6-3; Jasper Smit (Ned) bt Adam Fass 4 (U.S.) 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; Aisam Quereshi (Pak) bt Vishaal Uppal 6-2, 6-4; Ivan Cerovic (Cro) bt Vinod Sridhar 6-3, 7-6 (7-3); Simon Greul (GrB) bt Rohan Bopanna 6-0, 6-4; Denis Istomin (Uzb) bt Murad Inoyatov (Uzb) 7-6 (7-0), 6-4; Camil Capkovic (Svk) bt Sebastian Fitz (Aut) 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2; Rainer Etzinger (Aut) bt Kyu Tae Im (Kor) 7-5, 6-0.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Simon Greul (GB) & Peter Mayer Fischer (Ger) bt Vishaal Uppal & Ajay Ramaswamy 6-2, 6-4; Fred Hemmes & Jasper Smit (Aut) bt Vinod Sridhar & Jaco T. Mathew 6-3, 6-3.

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