The Hindu : Sport : Sanam Singh overcomes Yang

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 20, 2006
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Sanam Singh overcomes Yang

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Sanam Singh recovered from a mid-match slump to overcome qualifier Sung-Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei 6-4, 6-7(2), 6-3 in the first round of the State Bank of Saurashtra $15,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

The 18-year-old Sanam, who had won a similar tournament a year ago at the same venue to launch his career in the men's circuit, was cruising at 4-2 in the second set after having won the first. He was not at his fluent best but was playing good enough and was quite athletic to thwart the challenge of the stocky Taipei lad.

Lack of killer instinct

However, the former Asian junior champion, Sanam allowed things to drift as he returned the break in the eighth game and was not sharp in the eventual tie-break that pushed the match into the decider.

To his credit, Sanam put together a compact game in the third set to race to a 5-0 lead. There was some more tension for coach T. Chandrasekaran as Sanam lost the next three games, but he served out scotching any further drama.

Sanam will next meet second seed Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan who got past Aditya Madkekar, sharpening his game in a competitive second set after a fine start.

The results: Singles (first round): Rohan Bopanna bt Mustafa Ghouse 6-4, 6-4; Sunil Kumar bt Eui-Yeol Yang (Kor) 6-0, 6-4; Tushar Liberhan bt Arjun Goutham 7-6(3), 7-6(2); Pierre-Ludovic Duclos (Can) bt Vivek Shokeen 6-4, 7-6(5); Franc Dalla-Santa (Fra) bt Sarvar Ikramov (Uzb) 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-4; Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak) bt Stephen Amritraj (U.S.) 6-2, 6-2; Hyun-Woo Nam (Kor) bt Shivang Mishra 6-2, 6-1; Sanam Singh bt Tsung-Hua Yang (Tpe) 6-4, 6-7(2), 6-3; Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) bt Aditya Madkekar 6-2, 6-4.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Vladislav Bondarenko (Ukr)/ Todor Enev (Bul) bt Hsin-Han Lee/ Tsung-Hua Yang (Tpe) 6-1, 4-6, 6-3; Vijay Kannan/ Pathanjali Ravishankar bt Divij Sharan/ Navdeep Singh 6-4, 7-6(4); Stephen Amritraj (U.S.)/ Kamala Kannan bt Franck Dalla-Santa/ Xavier Pujo (Fra) 7-6(7), 7-5; Pierre-Ludovic Duclos (Can)/ Petar Jelenic (Cro) bt Vivek Shokeen/ Sanam Singh 6-1, 2-6, 6-4.

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