The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Vijay Sundar Prashanth bags title

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Friday, Sep 25, 2009
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Vijay Sundar Prashanth bags title

Sports Reporter

— Photo: M. Karunakaran

Vinod Sridhar (runner-up), Vijay Sundar Prashanth (winner) and Ramkumar Ramanathan (most promising player).

Chennai: Top seed Vijay Sundar Prashanth won the Indian Oil State-ranking tennis tournament for men with a 6-1, 6-2 rout of Vinod Sridhar.

Vijay reaped the rewards for a consistent game, his powerful serves and steady recovery asking repeated questions of the opponent. Vinod swore, pepped himself and cracked his racket on the synthetic courts, but couldn’t come up with the answers.

Scare

The only instance when Vijay had a fright was in the sixth game of the first set, when he had to take a medical time out with the score at 4-1 in his favour.

When play resumed, Vijay however seemed to have put the injury past him and continued to run his opponent ragged to take the first set with ease.

It was three games into the second set and with the score at 3-0 in Vijay’s favour that Vinod finally remembered to hold his serve. But the resistance was all too brief as Vijay served out the set and the match 6-2.

Title shared

Overnight rains meant that the doubles trophy was shared between the finalists. Ramkumar Ramanathan was adjudged to be the best young player of the tournament.

The results:

Singles (Final): Vijay Sundar bt Vinod Sridhar 6-1, 6-2; semifinal: Vinod Sridhar bt Mithun Murali 2-6, 6-3, 6-3; Vijay Sundar bt Ajay Selvaraj 7-5, 6-4. Doubles (Semifinal): Vinod Sridhar & Ajay Selvaraj bt Irfan Hussain & Elwin Anthony 6-3, 7-6(6); Vijay Sundar & Mithun Murali bt Kamala Kannan & Mohammad Fariz 6-1, 7-6(3).