The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Rupesh in final

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Friday, Jan 06, 2006

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Sport - Tennis

Rupesh in final

Special Correspondent

CHANDIGARH: Rupesh Roy and Sanaa Bhambri kept the Indian hopes alive with contrasting wins in the boys' and the girls' sections of the Sunny Enclave ITF Junior Grade III tennis tournament at the CLTA Complex here on Thursday.

On a foggy morning when the visibility had to be improved by switching on the floodlights straightaway, the top-seeded Rupesh toyed with compatriot Akshay Bajoria, as he cruised home in straight sets. Serving and stroking much better than his opponent, the 48th ranked Rupesh led 6-2, 5-1 but chose to stretch the entertainment as he missed two matchpoints in the seventh game on Bajoria's serve with a casual approach. However, after conceding three games on the trot, Rupesh tightened his game and served out the match, winding up the contest with a delectable drop.

It was a see-saw battle for the fourth-seeded Sanaa against the second-seeded Julia Glushko of Israel, but the Delhi left-hander's resilience helped her have the final say.

Sanaa hardly put a foot wrong in racing away with the first set at love, even as the Israeli kept yelling, banging and kicking her racquet in disgust. However, Sanaa was unable to maintain the tempo and lost the second set at love as she struggled with her serve and made uncharacteristic mistakes on the groundstrokes and hurried with the put-aways.

Into the decider, Sanaa dropped serve in the third game in trailing 1-2, but fought back remarkably to win the next four games that broke the resistance of the free-stroking Julia. Eventually, Sanaa served out the match at love to emphasise her authority.

The results (semifinals): Boys: Rupesh Roy bt Akshay Bajoria 6-3, 6-4; Ivan Anikanov (Ukr) bt Sumit Prakash Gupta 6-1 (retired). Girls: Yi-Miao Zhou (Chn) bt Ni Zhou (Chn) 6-3, 6-2; Sanaa Bhambri bt Julia Glushko (Isr) 6-0, 0-6, 6-3.

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