The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Rastogi rallies to beat Chang

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 31, 2007
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Rastogi rallies to beat Chang

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Karan Rastogi overcame an indifferent start and an inspired opponent to make the second round of the Oil India $15,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

On a day when he was announced as the spearhead of the Indian Davis Cup team for the tie against Uzbekistan, the 20-year-old Karan subdued the bespectacled Huai-En Chang, a qualifier from Chinese Taipei, ranked an unflattering 1,281 in the world.

After losing the first set 2-6 and being on par at 2-2 in the second, Karan played an energetic game to take the match away from the Taipei lad. Karan eventually prevailed 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 to set up an intriguing pre-quarterfinal clash against former national champion Vijay Kannan, who quelled the challenge from another Taipei player in the second set tie-break.

Vivek Shokeen beat Sunil Kumar in straight sets and proved his entry into the national squad was not a fluke. He will have it tough in the next round against top-seeded Alexei Kedriouk of Kazakhstan.

Vishaal Uppal tamed Aditya Madkekar in three sets to set up a second round clash with the fourth-seeded Divij Sharan. Pathanjali Ravishankar capitalised played lucky-loser Tushar Liberhan instead of Yuri Bezeruk of Australia, who had pulled out with a throat infection, and beat him in straight sets.

The results: Singles: First round: Vivek Shokeen bt Sunil Kumar 6-3, 6-4; Vishnu Vardhan bt Tsung-Hua Yang (Tep) 6-3, 7-5; Divij Sharan bt Stephen Amritraj 6-3, 6-4; Vishaal Uppal bt Aditya Madkekar 6-4, 3-6, 6-2; Gregorz Panfil (Pol) bt Sanam Singh 6-4, 6-2; Alexander Kudryavtsev (Rus) bt Vinod Sridhar 3-6, 6-3, 6-0; Ervand Gasparyan (Rus) bt Artemon Apostu-Efremov (Rom) 6-2, 6-1; Vijay Kannan bt Chu-Huan Yi (Tpe) 6-4, 7-6 (2); Karan Rastogi bt Huai-En Chang (Tpe) 2-6, 6-3, 6-2; Todor Enev (Bul) bt Ian Flanagan (GBR) 6-1, 6-4; Simeon Ivanov (Bul) bt Andrei Stoliarov (Rus) 6-3, 6-0; Pathanjali Ravishankar bt Tushar Liberhan 6-2, 6-4.

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