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Mankad overwhelms Leonte

Special Correspondent

GURGAON: Harsh Mankad got off to a good start and overwhelmed the third-seeded Bogdan-Victor Leonte of Romania 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of the $10,000 ITF men’ Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

Fuent-stroking Harsh belied his rank of 1289 to dismiss the 498th ranked Romanian with his usual touch of assurance.

On a warm and windy day when the courts were littered with the neem leaves much to the discomfiture of the players who feared injury owing to the resultant slippery nature of the synthetic surface, Vivek Shokeen dictated terms to the top-seeded Mohammad Al Ghareeb of Kuwait and threatened to cause a coup before losing his way.

High quality game

Playing a high quality game, backed by athleticism, intense concentration and considerable maturity of approach, Vivek led 5-3 in the first set, but could not serve it out despite being two points from doing so in the tenth game in which he fired two aces.

Once he lost momentum, Vivek lost confidence and the stomach for a fight, and ended up winning a mere two games thereafter.

In contrast, the 15-year-old Yuki Bhambri showed that he was a fighter till the end, no matter the length of time he stayed on court — be it in singles or doubles.

Yuki won a marathon against Elbert Sie of Indonesia in the morning.

Later, he partnered George Coupland of Britain to beat the seasoned Vijay Kannan and Vinod Sridhar 11-9 in the match tie-break, in the doubles pre-quarterfinals.

It may be a tough task for Yuki to match the power-play of Al Ghareeb in the second round on the morrow.

Vijay Kannan had the satisfaction of playing close to his best to outsmart Navdeep Singh in straight sets earlier in the day in the singles first round.

Former National champion Purav Raja went down fighting in a third-set tie-break to the fourth-seeded Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea while Ashutosh Singh led 3-1 in the third set against compatriot Rohan Gajjar when insuffiicient light stopped play.

The results: Singles (first round): Mohammad Al Ghareeb (Kuw) bt Vivek Shokeen 7-5, 6-2; Yuki Bhambri bt Elbert Sie (Ina) 6-3, 3-6, 6-2; Andrey Kumantsov (Rus) bt Ciaran Moore (RSA) 6-3, 6-2; Harsh Mankad bt Bogdan-Victor Leonte (Rou) 6-3, 6-3; Danila Arsenov (Rus) bt John McGahon (Irl) 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-2; Aqeel Khan (Pak) bt Divij Sharan 7-5, 6-3; Nathan Thompson (US) bt Wang Yu jr. (Chn) 6-2, 6-1; Vijay Kannan bt Navdeep Singh 6-4, 6-2; Kento Takeuchi (Jpn) bt Ryan Young (US) 6-1, 6-4; Hyun-Woo Nam (Kor) bt Purav Raja 6-7(5), 6-2, 7-6(3); Vaja Uzakov (Uzb) bt V. M. Ranjeet 3-6, 6-3, 6-0.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): George Coupland (GBR) and Yuki Bhambri bt Vijay Kannan and Vinod Sridhar 6-2, 4-6, 11-9.

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