STROKING WITH CONFIDENCE: The victory at the Futures should do Karan Rastogi's morale a world of good, going into the Chennai Open on a wildcard. — Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

NEW DELHI: He was ready for the final and knew that he was not going to make it by just playing a steady game.

Karan Rastogi went for the jugular straightaway, as he cruised to a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea in the final of the State Bank of Saurashtra ITF Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Saturday.

Playing his best in two weeks, the 20-year-old Rastogi captured his second title of the season at the same venue, outplaying Nam with his solid game.

The fourth-seeded Rastogi broke the Korean in the first game to set the tempo and warded off four breakpoints in the sixth game to stay on course to take the set.

Playing with imagination and outthinking his opponent by punctuating the strong rallies with smart drops that caught the Korean on the wrong foot, Rastogi called the shots throughout.

He had admirable concentration and maintained the tempo into the second set.

Rastogi broke Nam in the third and seventh games of the second set for a smooth finish.

He dropped a mere three points in his four services games in the second set to assert his authority.

"I am quite happy, especially with the way I played. I haven't been playing that great in the last few months and this title gives me a lot of confidence," said Rastogi.

Struggling for form

Indeed, Rastogi had been struggling with his form after winning the title at the same venue in May.

He lost in the quarterfinals the following week in Dehra Dun to Vivek Shokeen and had won just one match in nine tournaments before making the quarterfinals last week.

"I have been working on my game and there is still a lot of work to be done. I also need to get stronger physically. The level at the Chennai Open is going to be much higher. I am working my way to the next level as I don't want to be playing Futures all my life," said Rastogi, who has been given a wild card for the ATP Tour event starting on Monday.

Rastogi's coach, Sanjay Poddar, was a happy man as his ward executed the game plan pretty well against a tricky opponent, who had beaten last week's champion, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan, and the top-seeded Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan. Poddar had seen Rastogi play good tennis without getting matching results in some of the tournaments in the recent past, and was sure that the tide would turn.

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