Thaindian News

Mysore, June 6 (IANS) Unseeded Sidharth Rawat, ranked 1076, pulled off a big upset in the Zuari Garden City Mysore ITF Open tennis tournament when he knocked out Davis Cupper and fifth seed Karan Rastogi (476) 0-6, 6-2, 6-3 to enter the quarter-finals here Wednesday.

Rastogi, playing his first tournament after an injury in a Challenger in China about a month ago, seemed to be on course for an easy victory when he blasted his way in the first set.

However, a rain stoppage affected Rastogi’s rhythm and Rawat hit back to take the second set at 6-2 with two breaks in the fourth and eighth games.

In the decider, Rastogi tried his best to stop a rampaging Rawat, but could not succeed. Rawat broke Rastogi in the fourth game and sustained the momentum to close the match in 75 minutes.

The other seeded Players made the quarter finals without much fuss. On a cool day, marked by an overcast sky and spells of showers, top seed Ti-Chen of Taipei led the field into the quarter-finals with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Gavin Van Peperzeel in 75 minutes.

Second seed Vishnu Vardhan quelled a strong challenge from Abhijeet Tiwari in the first set and won 7-5, 6-2 in 80 minutes.

Tiwari, who trailed 1-4 in the first set, rallied well to tie the score at 4-all before Vishnu Vardhan broke him again in the 11th game and went on to take the set and easily won the second.

The quickest victory of the day was recorded by third seed Vijayant Malik, who outclassed Vinod Gowda 6-0, 6-1, in 48 minutes.

The results (Indians unless mentioned, prefix denotes seeding):

Singles (pre-quarter-finals): 2-Vishnu Vardhan bt Abhijeet Tiwari 7-5, 6-2; 4-Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan bt Zach Itzstein (AUS) 6-4, 6-3; 8-Kittiphong Wachiramanowong (THA) bt Neeraj Elangovan 6-1, 6-0; 7-N Sriram Balaji bt Bowen Ouyang (CHN) 6-3, 6-4; Saketh Myneni bt Ajai Selvaraj 7-6 (2), 6-4; 1-Ti Chen (TPE) bt Gavin Van Peperzeel (AUS) 6-1, 6-3; 3-Vijayant Malik bt Vinod Gowda 6-0, 6-1; Sidharth Rawat bt 5-Karan Rastogi 0-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Doubles (quarter-finals): Neeraj Elangovan / Farid Mohammed bt 4-Kaza Vinayak Sharma / Abhijeet Tiwari 7-6 (2), 5-7, 10-1; 1-N Sriram Balaji / Arun-Prakash Rajagopalan bt Shahbaaz Khan / Sumeet Shinde 6-2, 6-2; Kunal Anand / Ajai Selvaraj bt Jatin Dahiya / Yogesh Phogat 6-3, 6-4; Venkat Iyer (IND) / Bowen Ouyang (CHN) bt Scott Poudziunas (AUS) / Gavin Van Peperzeel (AUS) 1-6, 6-3, 10-6.