The Hindu : Sport : Purav, Vishnu in final

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Saturday, Oct 14, 2006
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Purav, Vishnu in final

Kamesh Srinivasan

GOOD SHOW: Purav Raja made the most of Sanam Singh's errors in the decider.

NEW DELHI: Purav Raja pulled of an improbable 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 victory over favourite Sanam Singh in the semifinals of the DSCL National tennis championship at the DLTA Complex here on Friday.

While it was a creditable effort from Purav, the 18-year-old Sanam messed it up in the decider after being 4-1 up following two breaks of serve in the first and fifth games. Even when he was faced with two match points in what proved to be the last game, Sanam came up with a big serve to save one and had set up a sitter on the next only to bury it tamely into the net in his anxiety to stretch the contest.

Sanam started off well and raced to a 5-2 lead after an early exchange of breaks. He did lose track thereafter and lost the next five games on the trot, dropping serve in the ninth and 11th games.

Sanamplayed better in the second set to wrap it up without much fuss and looked to continue in the same fashion till he let things drift away from 4-1 in the third set.

Easy for Vishnu

In the final, Purav will challenge the man in form, Vishnu Vardhan, who outplayed Ashutosh Singh for the loss of three games.

Purav had a taste of further success as he won the doubles title partnering his coach Sandeep Kirtane.

In the women's section, the top seed Isha Lakhani and second-seeded Sandhya Nagaraj proved too good for their opponents, and later joined hands to clinch the doubles title as well.

In boys' play, defending champion Arnav Jain was shown the door by Fariz Mohammad, while Sriram Balaji had little difficulty in getting past top seed Sumit Prakash Gupta.

The girls' final will be between Kelsey Sundaram and Kyra Shroff.

The results: Men: Semifinals: Purav Raja bt Sanam Singh 7-5, 3-6, 6-4; Vishnu Vardhan bt Ashutosh Singh 6-2, 6-1. Doubles: Final: Purav Raja/ Sandeep Kirtane bt Saurav Sukul/ Yannick Nelord 6-0, 7-6(6).

Boys: Under-18: Semifinals: Sriram Balaji bt Sumit Prakash Gupta 6-3, 6-4; Fariz Mohammad bt Arnav Jain 6-2, 6-2. Doubles: Final: Prajnesh Gunneswaran/ Akash Gujarathi bt Sumit Prakash Gupta/ Kinshuk Sharma 6-3, 7-6(5).

Women: Semifinals: Isha Lakhani bt Sonal Phadke 6-3, 6-1; Sandhya Nagaraj bt Vishaka Sheoran 6-0, 6-4. Doubles: Final: Isha Lakhani/ Sandhya Nagaraj bt Poojashree Venkatesh/ Parija Maloo 6-3, 6-4.

Girls: Under-18: Semifinals: Kelsey Sundaram bt Madura Ranganathan 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-4; Kyra Shroff bt Parija Maloo 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-3. Doubles: Final: Kyra Shroff and Kelsey Sundaram bt Shalini Sahoo and Vishaka Sheoran 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.

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