The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Rastogi in final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 27, 2006

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Rastogi in final

Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI: Karan Rastogi saved a matchpoint to beat the top-seeded Henry Adjei-Darko of Ghana 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-4 in the semifinals of the $ 15,000 ITF Futures tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Friday.

The 19-year-old Karan started on a wrong note, dropping his serve in the first and third games and missed five breakpoints in the fourth game. Thereafter, he hardly put a foot wrong in the contest that spanned two hours and 51 minutes under energy-sapping conditions. He served consistently well, though he had only four aces to show.

Karan had done very well to save two breakpoints in the 11th game of the second set at 15-40 but faced a matchpoint at 5-6 in the tie-break. However, he played well to win the next three points that forced the decider.

He broke Darko decisively in the ninth game of the third set and served out the match at love, winning the first two points with superb shots while the opponent surrendered the next two with wayward strokes.

Karan will be challenged by the fourth-seeded Nick Monroe of the U.S., who defeated an erratic Vivek Shokeen in three sets.

In the doubles final, Sunil Kumar combined well with Henry Adjei-Darko to beat Mustafa Ghouse and Kamala Kannan.

The results:

Singles (semifinals): Karan Rastogi bt Henry Adjei-Darko (Gha) 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-4; Nick Monroe (U.S.) bt Vivek Shokeen 7-5, 4-6, 6-2.

Doubles (final): Henry Adjei-Darko (Gha) / Sunil Kumar bt Mustafa Ghouse / Kamala Kannan 7-6(5), 6-4.

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