The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Vivek knocks out Navdeep Singh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Vivek knocks out Navdeep Singh

Kamesh Srinivasan

DEHRA DUN: Vivek Shokeen emphasised his growing confidence by knocking out seventh-seeded Navdeep Singh 6-2, 6-7(4), 6-3 in the first round of the ONGC $15,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament at the Shanti Academy courts here on Tuesday.

In a keen contest that spanned two hours and 15 minutes in hot conditions, the 18-year-old Vivek emerged the stronger of the two, as he whipped winners and wound up the show with an ace.

It was Vivek who started on a bright note. He played an energetic game and raced away with the first set, breaking Navdeep in the third and seventh games. Vivek had the upper hand in the second set too as he led 4-3 with a break in the seventh game.

However, he soon lost focus and dropped his serve rather tamely in the eighth game. He managed to save three set points in the 12th game to force the tie-break but his below-par fare continued and Navdeep swung his racquet to recover from 2-5 in the tie-break to put matters on par.

A tame finish

In the decider, Navdeep did not have the physical strength to make a fight of it, though he came up with a last hurrah in saving two matchpoints in the eighth game. Overall, Vivek capitalised on an early break in the second game to finish off the match in style.

Elsewhere, Karan Rastogi adapted to the conditions nicely and scripted an authoritative victory over qualifier Juan Langton of Samoa. He will next face the wily Nitin Kirtane.

The 16-year-old Sriram Balaji was unable to make much of an impact against top-seeded Henry Adjei-Darko of Ghana, while Vishaal Uppal, Vinod Sridhar and Sunil Kumar progressed without dropping a set. Purav Raja outplayed Tushar Liberhan with surprising ease while Mustafa Ghouse was equally assertive against Varun Walia, winning 11 games in a row after being 1-2 down.

The results:

Singles (first round): Henry Adjei-Darko (Gha) bt Sriram Balaji 6-0, 6-2; Vijay Paul (US) bt Rahil Makharia 7-5, 6-0; Vishaal Uppal bt Michael Leong (Sol) 6-4, 7-6(4); Nick Monroe (US) bt Tai-Wei Liu (Tpe) 6-4, 6-1; Purav Raja bt Tushar Liberhan 6-0, 6-1; Vinod Sridhar bt Mathew Taylor (GBR) 6-4, 6-4; Vivek Shokeen bt Navdeep Singh 6-2, 6-7(4), 6-3; Sumit Prakash Gupta bt Yannick Nelord 1-6, 6-1, 7-6(3); Karan Rastogi bt Juan Langton (Sam) 6-1, 6-2; Sunil Kumar bt Sandeep Choudhary 6-4, 7-6(4); Yaoki Ishii bt Divyanshu Singh 6-2, 6-1; Mustafa Ghouse bt Varun Walia 6-2, 6-0; Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) bt Dmitri Makeyev (Kaz) 7-6(6), 7-6(5).

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Mustafa Ghouse/Sunil Kumar bt Tai-Wei Liu (Tpe)/Nitin Kirtane 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(0).

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