The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Ashvarya Shrivastava and Allan Gomes claim boys' and girls' titles

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 19, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

Ashvarya Shrivastava and Allan Gomes claim boys' and girls' titles

Special Correspondent

— Photo: S. Thanthoni

THE CHAMPIONS: Ashvarya Shrivastava and Allen Gomes, winners of the ABI Show Tech KTC-AITA junior championship, with R. Srikanth, Joint Managing Director, Brakes India Ltd.

CHENNAI: Allan Gomes rode his powerful serve to beat Venkat Iyer of Delhi 6-0, 7-5 in the boys' under-18 final of the ABI ShowaTech KTC-AITA junior championship tennis series at the Krishnan Centre courts here on Thursday.

Ashvarya Shrivastava of Maharashtra fought well to down the local girl, Bhavani Tirumuti 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 to clinch the girls' title.

The 13-year-old Ashvarya, a product of the Nandan Bal Academy in Pune, showed excellent control in the first set, moving Bhavani around. But the tall Tamil Nadu girl found her touch in the second set, putting to good use some solid serving and a heavy forehand.

And they fought well in the third set too, breaking each other's game. But Ashvarya's better serve and confident stroke-play meant she eventually prevailed.

Gujarat's Allan, a trainee at the PYC Club in Pune, is the nation's 25th ranked junior. But he has already won under-18 Talent Series titles this season at Jakarta and Dhaka.

After Allan made his serve count in the first set, it was in the second set that real battle started. Venkat kept up with Allan with a few crosscourt returns. It looked like the match was going to go all the way when Venkat took a 5-4 lead. But Allan, who received a warning for racquet abuse, once again relied on his serve to stay in the match. He broke Venkat in the next game and then served the match out.

R. Srikanth, Joint Managing Director, Brakes India Ltd, distributed the prizes and Ramanathan Krishnan presided.

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