The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Impressive wins for Shivang, Vinod

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

Impressive wins for Shivang, Vinod

Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI: Qualifier Shivang Mishra defeated Hyung-Tae Kwon of Korea 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 in the first round of the BSNL $10,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

The 22-year-old Shivang, who had come through three rounds of the qualifying event, recovered his composure after flinging his racquet in disgust on losing the first set.

Shivang played sensibly and raced to a 5-0 lead against the 943rd-ranked Korean in the decider before cruising to a comfortable finish.

The effort ensured one ATP point and $2000 for Shivang apart from a pre-quarterfinal berth, where he will meet the top-seeded Matthew Smith of Britain.

Another impressive winner was the sixth-seeded Vinod Sridhar, who tamed qualifier Hiroki Kondo of Japan in about an hour-and-a-half.

The former National champion, Vinod, will be challenged by Sanam Singh, who was in superb form before his opponent, another former National champion Punna Vishal, retired midway through the second set with a painful elbow.

Jeevan loses

Qualifier Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, who is trying to break into the men's league, gave a good account of himself before he squandered a 4-3 lead in the decider against the big-serving Frank Moser of Germany. More than the prowess of his opponent, the 17-year-old Chennai lad's serve let him down this day.

He made a string of seven doublefaults, including one each on the set point in the first set and the match-point. Moser had reached the final last week in Chandigarh.

Painful shoulder

The fifth-seeded Vishaal Uppal also bit the dust against qualifier Radoslav Nijaki of Poland, as he was unable to serve normally because of a painful shoulder.

Five doublefaults in the first game was a clear indication of the turn of events to come and Vishaal just about went through the motion before bowing out.

In other matches that saw Indians at the receiving end, lucky loser Dmitri Makeyev of Kazakhstan overpowered Kamala Kannan for the loss of two games, while the 15-year-old Daniel Cox of Britain was equally severe against Gurmehar Singh.

The results:

Singles (first round, Indians unless specified): Shivang Mishra bt Hyung-Tae Kwon (Kor) 4-6, 6-3, 6-1; Sanam Singh bt Punna Vishal 6-3, 3-0 (retd.); Vinod Sridhar bt Hiroki Kondo (Jpn) 4-6, 6-4, 6-2; Dmitri Makeyev (Kaz) bt Kamala Kannan 6-0, 6-2; Radoslav NIjaki (Pol) bt Vishaal Uppal 6-3, 6-2; Daniel Cox (GBR) bt Gurmehar Singh 6-1, 6-2; Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak) bt Marcio Torres (Bra) 6-1, 7-5; Frank Moser bt Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan 6-1, 4-6, 6-4; Chu-Huan Yi (Tpe) bt David Brewer (GBR) 6-3, 6-1.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak)/Marcio Torres (Bra) bt Hoh-Kong So/Hiu-Tung Yu (Hkg) 6-2, 7-5; Jae-Sung An (Kor)/HIroki Kondo (Jpn) bt Kamala Kannan/Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-3, 6-4; Vijay Kannan/Ashutosh Singh bt Radoslav Nijaki/Michal Przysiezny (Pol) 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-2; Tushar Liberhan/Navdeep Singh bt Motaz Abou-El Khair (Egy)/Norikazu Sugiyama (Jpn) 6-3, 6-3.

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