The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Salifu sends Bopanna packing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 22, 2005

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Salifu sends Bopanna packing

Kamesh Srinivasan

DEHRADUN: Rohan Bopanna was not ready for the final stretch and bowed out in the pre-quarterfinals of the ONGC ITF Satellite tennis circuit Masters event at the Doon School courts here on Tuesday.

On a day when a spell of rain and hailstorm came as a welcome relief, though it forced the abandonment of a few matches, the 25-year-old Bopanna listened to his body and refused to push it beyond a point.

Quite funnily, Salifu Mohammed of Ghana — who had beaten Bopanna in the semifinals of the first leg — was unable to provide the finishing touches in the second set itself when the Coorg lad had already thrown in the towel. The 18-year-old from Ghana eventually won 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 as Bopanna wound up with his 10th doublefault of the match.

Having played 63 sets in 27 matches over three weeks in singles and doubles, Bopanna was unable to goad himself any further though he stood to lose a maximum of 10 ATP points with an early exit.

Clarke moves up

Second-seeded Peter Clarke, the champion of the last two legs, prevailed over Pathanjali Ravishankar 7-6(5), 6-4. Clarke was on the brink of a nervous breakdown because of the numerous bad calls, but Ravishankar sportingly agreed to do away with the umpire after losing the first set in the tie-break. The Indian left-hander recovered from 1-5 down in the second set, but Clarke proved a tough nut to crack.

Nitin Kirtane continued with his dream run as he recovered from being 3-5 down in the first set to outwit the young Tushar Liberhan. Nitin will meet Vishaal Uppal who had it easy as the fourth-seeded Vinod Sridhar retired with an elbow pain after losing the first four games.

In the doubles quarterfinals, Uppal and Nitin had won the first set in the tie-break against Yew Ming Si of Indonesia and Prima Simpatiaji of Indonesia but rain interrupted play in the second set.

Easy for Simpatiaji

Earlier, Simpatiaji capitalised on an early break in both the sets to down Navdeep Singh in straight sets and will tackle Kamala Kannan who beat the seventh-seeded Gurmehar Singh for the loss of three games. Hyderabad's J. Vishnu Vardhan was leading 7-6(2), 4-6, 5-4 when rain stopped play.

At the start of the day's programme, a minute's silence was observed as a mark of respect to the former president of the All India Tennis Association (AITA), Mr. R.K. Khanna, who died this morning.

The results: Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Salifu Mohammed (Gha) bt Rohan Bopanna 6-4, 5-7, 6-3; Vishaal Uppal bt Vinod Sridhar 4-0 (conceded); Nitin Kirtane bt Tushar Liberhan 7-6(5), 6-1; Kamala Kannan bt Gurmehar Singh 6-2, 6-1; Prima Simpatiaji (Ina) bt Navdeep Singh 6-4, 6-4; Stephen Mitchell (RSA) bt Ashutosh Singh 7-5, 7-6(3); Peter Clarke (Irl) bt Pathanjali Ravishankar 7-6(5), 6-4.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Tushar/Navdeep bt Bopanna/Vijay Kannan 7-6(7) conceded.

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