Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) On a day when all matches were straight-set affairs, top seed Vishnu Vardhan was the lone Indian to make the semi-finals of the $10,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament at the DLTA complex here Thursday.
Vishnu defeated compatriot Rupesh Roy, 6-3, 6-2, beating him for the second successive time in less than two months.

Vishnu now plays fifth-seeded Dutch Peter Lucassen who advanced to the last four stage after the promising N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth retired trailing 6-7(3), 0-2 due to a knee problem. The Indian has had a good run in the tournament, taking out fourth-seed Rohan Gajjar and former hadrcourt national champion Ashutosh Singh in the first two rounds.

Lucassen had also got a walkover in his previous match, another Indian Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan retiring mid-way with cramps.

In another quarter-final match, sixth-seeded Ranjeeth Virali-Murugesan of India was outclassed by second-seeded South Korean Young-Jun Kim 6-0, 6-2.

The Korean, with a strong backhand, slowed down the game to blunt the Indian’s groundstrokes. Kim served big and he cleverly mixed the pace of his shots to force Ranjeeth into errors.

Such was Kim’s grip on the match that Ranjeeth could not hold his serve till the first game of the second set. The Indian tried to shift gears but the Korean proved too good, breaking him again in the third game.

Ranjeeth had a break opportunity in the sixth game, but failed to convert as the Korean came with two consecutive aces to take a 4-2 lead. The Indian once again dropped his serve in the next game and Korean had no problem in serving out the match.

Kim next plays third seed Chris Eaton of Britain who dispatched compatriot, eighth-seed Sean Thornley 6-1, 6-3.