The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Bopanna sails into semifinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 10, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

Bopanna sails into semifinals

Kamesh Srinivasan

GURGAON: Top seed Rohan Bopanna crushed qualifier Shivang Mishra 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the Indian Oil ITF Satellite tennis circuit second leg at the NTA Complex here on Thursday.

The champion of the first leg, the 25-year-old Bopanna did not have to exert much as his opponent struggled to cope with the pace. Bopanna did get broken in the fourth game of the second set as he delivered two doublefaults, but the Coorgi lad hardly put a foot wrong otherwise, during the contest that lasted an hour.

Bopanna fired six aces in the match in which he got off the blocks briskly, as he raced to a 5-0 lead within no time, stroking into the corners with punch and panache.

Though he was annoyed about not being able to tackle Bopanna with competence, Shivang could take solace from the fact that he had done well to win five matches in a row from the qualifying event that should do a world of good to his confidence.

In the semifinals on the morrow, Bopanna will meet third seed Vinod Sridhar who was equally authoritative in dismissing the seventh seed Jaco Mathew despite the second set witnessing five breaks of serve.

Though he had lost first round last week, the left-handed Vinod has been stroking with purpose so far and can make it a lively affair against Bopanna. The last time the two met in the professional circuit in 2002, Bopanna had won in three sets in which two were stretched to the tie-break. Two years earlier Vinod had won their first encounter in straight sets.

The second seed Vijay Kannan was unable to match Peter Clarke of Ireland. Peter had lost in the first round last week.

For one who had been ranked as high as 229 in 2002, Peter has been showing glimpses of his expertise on court this week by bull-dozing his way past less resourceful opponents.

The results:

Singles (quarterfinals): Rohan Bopanna bt Shivang Mishra 6-1, 6-2; Vinod Sridhar bt Jaco Mathew 6-1, 6-3; Stephen Mitchell (RSA) bt Dmitri Makeev (Kaz) 6-2, 7-6(8); Peter Clarke (Irl) bt Vijay Kannan 6-4, 6-3.

Doubles (semifinals): Rohan Bopanna / Vijay Kannan bt Tushar Liberhan / Navdeep Singh 6-7(7), 7-6(2), 6-3; Hayato Furukawa / Tetsuhiro Yamamoto (Jpn) bt Anjan Viplav / Vijay Sundar Prashant 7-6(5), 6-4.

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