The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : No sweat for Prakash

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Sunday, Jun 10, 2007
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No sweat for Prakash

Special Correspondent

SWEET TASTE OF TRIUMPH: Prakash Amritraj won his second successive ITF men's Futures tennis singles tournament at Dehradun on Saturday.

DEHRADUN: Prakash Amritraj asserted his supremacy with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Karan Rastogi in the final of the ONGC $10,000 ITF Futures men's tennis tournament at the Shanti Academy here on Saturday.

It was the second victory in a row against the top-seeded Karan, and Prakash looked to be continuing from where he had left in the second set of the final in Chandigarh.

"I had learnt a lot from last week's final, mentally more than physically. I was not worried about winning or losing, but just kept up the focus. I dropped serve only once the whole week and I am happy with the way I have maintained a good level of game irrespective of the opponents," said Prakash, who collected 12 ATP points and $1,300.

Big serves

Serving consistently big, moving briskly and hitting the ball cleanly, Prakash toyed with Karan as the latter struggled to put together his game.

The 23-year-old Prakash raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set, firing three aces in the fifth game, to set the tempo. The set itself lasted a mere 24 minutes, as Karan grappled with his service rhythm, and could win only four points in all in his first two service games. A string of doublefaults eroded Karan's confidence and he could not play the game that had seen him make his second final on the trot.

Prakash finally wound up the first set with an ace.

Tame finish

Despite playing better in the second, the 20-year-old Karan continued to struggle as he got broken in the third and seventh games and went down easily.

He had to make do with 8 ATP points and $900. A disappointed Karan smacked the racquet a couple of times, after it had slipped off his hand when he was serving, which strangely led to the racquet handle, rather than the frame, breaking into two pieces.

In contrast, Prakash did not face a breakpoint in the whole match except when he was serving for the title.

He easily got out of trouble with big serves and wound up the show in style with an ace, his tenth in the match, and celebrated quietly putting two fingers up to indicate his second successive title.

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