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Soeda prevails over Ashutosh Singh

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Go Soeda of Japan scotched the Indian hopes with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Ashutosh Singh in the pre-quarterfinals of the $50,000 Challenger tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Wednesday.

Ashutosh stumbled off to a poor start, after play started nearly six hours behind schedule owing to incessant rain, but put up a good fight against the fourth-seeded Japanese.

Fightback

On losing the first set, following breaks in the first and third games, Ashutosh showed considerable resolve as he fought on even terms against the 133rd ranked Soeda.

The foundation to the revival was the confident manner in which Ashutosh held his service games, after having saved break points in the first and third games of the second set. Eventually, he broke the Japanese in the eighth game as Soeda put a volley long on break point. Ashutosh closed out the set competently as he started it with an ace and wound up with a nice placement.

In the decider, a string of errors in the eighth game saw Ashutosh drop serve tamely and the Japanese proved too good in serving out the match.

With his second round entry Ashuotsh collected five ATP points and $ 860. Incidentally, he was also the only Indian in the second round last week.

The other Indian left in the singles draw, Vishnu Vardhan was up against the classy Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan, and could not play to potential despite putting up a gritty performance.

Vishnu got broken in the sixth game of the first set and in the 11th game of the seconddespite keeping pace with the fifth-seeded Pakistani who came up with an attractive all-round game.

The results: Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Yen-Hsun Lu (Tpe) bt Sun Peng (Chn) 6-4, 6-1; Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak) bt Vishnu Vardhan 6-3, 7-5; Thomas Oger (Fra) bt Samuel Groth (Aus) 6-3, 6-2; Ricardo Mello (Fra) bt Colin Ebelthite (Aus) 6-2, 7-6(2); Go Soeda (Jpn) bt Ashutosh Singh 6-2, 3-6, 6-3; Alexandre Kudryavtsev (Rus) bt Adam Feeney (Aus) 7-5, 6-4; Gilles Muller (Lux) bt Rajeev Ram (U.S.) 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5).

Doubles (quarterfinals): Brendan Evans (U.S.) & Mustafa Ghouse bt Toshihide Matsui & Go Soeda (Jpn) 7-6(6), 7-6(2); Harsh Mankad & Ashutosh Singh bt Olivier Charroin & Thomas Oger (Fra) 4-6, 7-6(0), 10-8; Adam Feeney (Aus) & Purav Raja bt Yuki Bhambri & Kamala Kannan 1-1 (retd.).

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