The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Vivek Shokeen shocks Kedriouk

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Thursday, Feb 01, 2007
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Vivek Shokeen shocks Kedriouk

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Vivek Shokeen celebrated his entry into the Davis Cup squad with a 7-6(5), 7-5 victory over the top-seeded Alexei Kedriouk of Kazakhstan in the pre-quarterfinals of the Oil India ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Wednesday.

In a match in which there was only one break of serve, the 19-year-old Delhi boy showed commendable fighting spirit by recovering from 0-40 twice, especially while serving for the match in the 12th game.

The strapping young man won five points in a row to close out the match in which he fired seven aces.

Shokeen broke Kedriouk in the 11th game of the second set and that proved decisive.

Shokeen now takes on the crafty Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea in the quarterfinals.

Three other Indian players set up quarterfinal match-ups against foreign opponents.

Karan Rastogi got broken in the first game but won the next 12 to overwhelm the former national champion, Vijay Kannan, winding up nicely by firing three aces in the last game. The Mumbai lad will meet Kyu-Tae Im of Korea.

Ashtuosh Singh faced a late challenge from Pathanjali Ravishankar, but rode on his all-round game to set up a meeting against the champion of last week, Todor Enev of Bulgaria.

Divij Sharan got the better of Vishaal Uppal.

The results: Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Vivek Shokeen bt Alexei Kedriouk (Kaz) 7-6(5), 7-5; Hyun-Woo Nam (Kor) bt Vishnu Vardhan 6-3, 6-4.

Divij Sharan bt Vishaal Uppal 6-2, 1-6, 6-3; Alexander Kudryavtsev (Rus) bt Gregorz Panfil (Pol) 6-2, 6-2; Kyu-Tae Im (Kor) bt Ervand Gasparyan (Rus) 6-2, 6-1.

Karan Rastogi bt Vijay Kannan 6-1, 6-0; Todor Enev (Bul) bt Simeon Ivanov (Bul) 6-2, 6-1; Ashutosh Singh bt Pathanjali Ravishankar 6-1, 7-6(3).

Doubles (quarterfinals): Alexei Kedriouk (Kaz) and Alexander Kudryavtsev (Rus) bt Yuri Bezeruk (Aus) and Andrei Stoliarov (Rus) 7-6 (3), 6-1.

Stpeen Amritraj and Divij Sharan bt Tushar Liberhan and Navdeep Singh 6-4, 6-4; Vivek Shokeen and Sanam Singh bt Todor Enev and Simeon Ivanov (Bul) 6-4, 6-3.

Sandeep Kirtane and Purav Raja bt Vinod Sridhar and Vishnu Vardhan 6-3, 6-2.

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