Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) Sriram Balaji Narayanaswamy swept aside Ronak Manuja to enter the singles quarter-final while in doubles Vikram Reddy and Abhijeet Tiwari shocked top seeds Ranjeet Virali Murugesan and Vijay Sundar Prashanth to move into the semi-final of the DSCL men’s tennis national at the DLTA stadium here Wednesday. While there were no major upsets in the singles, the doubles draw came alive with some lower ranked players spanking their seeded opponents.

Vikram and Abhijeet toiled hard to put out the top seeds 7-6(5), 3-6 (11-9) to set up a semifinal clash with wildcards Pulkit Mishra and Ankit Sachdeva, who upset fourth seeds Arjun Goutham and Aditya Madkekar 6-3, 3-6, (10-8).

A poised Sriram, 18, played a sharp game and showed good court-craft as he put pressure on Ronak to win 6-3, 6-4.

Sriram broke Ronak in the second game to take the first set. Ronak showed signs of a fightback when he broke Sriram in second game of the second set but was immediately muffled by the Tamil Nadu boy, who broke him the very next game and then in the ninth game to close the match in one hour and 26 minutes.

“I did not restrict myself to the baseline and rushed to the nets when required. I moved well on the court. I took it bit easy in the second set but played good overall,” said Sriram, who in quarter-final meets second seed Rohan Gide, who dispatched Rubal Shandilya 6-2, 6-4.

“I have beaten Rohan before, so I am confident about the next match,” Sriram said.

It proved another easy win for Madkekar, who gave a 6-0, 6-1 pounding to qualifier Ketan Dhumal to set-up a clash with Vijayant Malik, who upset fourth-seeded Vijay Sunder Prashant 6-3, 6-4 in the second round.

In other doubles matches, third seeds Mithun Murali and Vinod Sridhar edged past Gide and Malik 6-3, 1-6 (10-5). In the semi-final, they will meet Yannick Nelord and Saurav Sukul, who beat P.C. Vignesh and Fariz Mohammad 6-4, 6-3.