The Hindu : Sport : Hiroki Morya packs off Sriram Balaji

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 31, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport

Hiroki Morya packs off Sriram Balaji

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Indian aspirations suffered a severe jolt, as Sriram Balaji lost in three sets to the fifth-seeded Hiroki Morya of Japan in the second round of the Asia-Oceania ITF junior tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

Balaji got off to a good start, but it was the Japanese who turned the tide decisively in his favour at 2-2 in the second set to run away to a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory in two hours and 20 minutes.

To his credit, the Japanese played quite well to reel off six games on the trot to win the second set and go up 2-0 in the decider. Balaji won two games to be on par in the third set, but Morya won the next four to make the pre-quarterfinals.

Balaji saved three match points from 0-40 but could not sustain his dwindling fortunes any further. Returning to the circuit after an ankle injury, Balaji was not sharp and that proved his undoing.

Another player who has also returned to the circuit after an injury lay-off, Venkat Iyer also struggled to be anywhere near his best and went down tamely to Chandril Sood.

Yuki to meet Vijayant

Yuki Bhambri set up a pre-quarterfinal against Vijayant Malik on expected lines, while Karunuday Singh and B. Vikram Reddy also marched to the third round.

In the girls’ section, Shivika Burman bounced back from being 4-6, 0-4 down to get the better of Anastasiya Prernko of Turkmenistan 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-1.

Janaki advances

Equally impressive was Janaki Gunuganti, who let go a chance to wind up quickly from being up 6-2, 3-0 before saving a match point to win the third set tie-break.

Kelsey Sundaram, Rashmi Teltumbe and the second-seeded Poojashree Venkatesh were the other Indians to make the pre-quarterfinals.

The results (second round): Boys: Bernard Tomic (Aus) bt Yeh-Hsyang Lo (Tpe) 6-2, 6-4; Di Wu (Chn) bt Liang-Chi Huang (Tpe) 6-2, 6-4; Tearney Finn (Nzl) bt Rohit Bisht 6-4, 6-0; Yuki Matsuo (Jpn) bt Abhijeet Tiwari 6-3, 6-4. Tadayuki Longhi (Jpn) bt Shiva Sangwan 6-3, 6-0; Stephen Hoh (Aus) bt Parul Verma 6-2, 6-0; Chandril Sood bt Venkat Iyer 7-5, 6-4; Peerakit Siributwong (Tha) bt Palash Tiwari 7-5, 7-6(2); Yuki Bhambri bt Ryoken Matsui (Jpn) 6-2, 6-3; Vijayant Malik bt Ronak Manuja 3-6, 6-1, 6-3; Karunuday Singh bt Vikash Chauhan 6-1, 6-3; Matt Reid (Aus) bt Keng-Cheng Lin (Tpe) 6-3, 6-2. Mackenzie Logan (Nzl) bt Yi-Lun Lin (Tpe) 6-3, 7-5; Hiroki Morya (Jpn) bt Sriram Balaji 3-6, 6-2, 6-2; B. Vikram Reddy bt Saurabh Singh 6-4, 6-1; Kittipong Wachiramanowong (Tha) bt Mandeep Yadav 6-1, 6-1.

Girls: Noppawan Lertcheewakarn (Tha) bt Tzu-Chen Hsu (Tpe) 6-1, 6-0; Kelsey Sundaram bt Jessica Marie Agra (Phi) 6-3, 6-2; Jade Hooper (Aus) bt Tanvi Shah 6-2, 6-4;. Kanyapat Narattana (Tha) bt T. Nilaya 6-3, 6-0; Aleksandra Kolesnichenko (Uzb) bt Prerna Bhambri 6-4, 6-3; Nicha Lertpitaksinchai (Tha) bt Aishwarya Agrawal 6-2, 6-3; Beatrice Gumulya bt Sweta Solanki 6-3, 6-4; Sophia Mulsap (Tha) bt Ratnika Batra 6-1, 6-4; Yang Zi-Jun Jun (Hkg) bt Rishika Sunkara 6-4, 6-4; Janaki Gunuganti bt Prang Pantusart (Tha) 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(7).

Rashmi Teltumbe bt Inayat Khosla 6-3, 6-2; Jessy Priskilla Rompies (Ina) bt Deepna Vazirani 6-0, 6-0; Shivika Burman bt Anastasiya Prenko (Tkm) 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-1; Khunpak Issara (Tha) bt Renuka Keswani 6-0, 6-0; Satjaporn Mahajaroenkul (Tha) bt Celina Goetti (Sin) 6-2, 6-2; Poojashree Venkatesh bt Bhavana Suresh 4-6, 6-1, 6-1.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail