The Hindu : Poojashree clinches title in style

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 19, 2002

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Poojashree clinches title in style

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE APRIL 18. On Poojashree's request her semifinal against Kanimozhi in the girls Under-14 singles event of the South Zone AITA Junior ranking championship at the Century Courts was advanced by a day to be played this afternoon.

The change of schedule turned out to be a fruitful one for the 11-year old local girl who went on to blank Tamil Nadu's second seeded Kanimozhi.

With the ensuing Mumbai event in mind, Poojashree wanted to give herself enough time to firm up her travel plans.

A plea for a change was an off shoot of that. Ironically, Kanimozhi seemed to be the girl in great hurry. Not Poojashree, who kept pegging away on a length to force her opponent make the bulk of errors.

It seemed as if Kanimozhi would either drive the ball long or find the net in the way. She did come up with a thumping forehand now and then.

But for the load of mistakes she committed on the day, she needed to produce such heady stuff in great numbers.

At no stage of the match, Poojashree was under pressure as she held her own serve, and with regularity broke Kanimozhi's to end up a 6-0, 6-0 winner, a complete reversal of the form chart, considering Kanimozhi's stature as a seeded player.

Still grappling with her train reservations, Poojashree awaits the winner of the second semifinal, which to her comfort will throw up a local girl.

Top seeded G. K. Shwetha set up a semi-final meeting with her Karnataka team-mate Amoolya Raghunath, who on Wednesday knocked the top seeded Asha Nandakumar out of the girls under 16 event.

While Shwetha got past Supriya for the loss of two second set games, Amoolya was equally economical in her treatment of third seeded Unnati Purushotham, beating the Andhra Pradesh entry for the loss of one game in each of the two sets.

Fourth Seeded N. S. Mangal of Tamil Nadu failed to make the semi-final cut in the Boys under 14 event.

Seventh Seeded Kaushik S. Raju put Mangal out of stride early in the match to complete a 6-0, 6-3 victory. Top seed R. K. Praveen handled Siddarth Hande with ease while his namesake from Andhra, seeded a notch below him, got the better of Mesheer Vaswani.

Manu Bajpai, seeded at No 1 in the boys under 16 singles ran into a rough patch against R. K. Praveen before getting back into high spirits at the midway point.

Praveen is a dour fighter and twice during a close first set he pulled himself out of tight situations to stay as close as he could.

But Manu played two exquisite games from 5-5 to close out the first set. In the second, Manu ran up a 4-1 cushion and ride safely home on it.

The results:

Boys Under-14 singles (Quarterfinals): R. K. Praveen (Kar) bt Siddarth Hande (TN) 6-2, 6-1, Sujith Sachidanand (Kar) bt J. Shravan Kumar (TN) 6-1, 6-3.

Kaushik S. Raju (Kar) bt N. S. Mangal (TN) 6-0, 6-3, K. H. Praveen (AP) bt Mesheer Vaswani (Kar) 6-1, 6-4.

Boys Under-16 singles (Quarterfinals): Dhruv Sunder (Kar) bt Shishir S. Patil (Kar) 6-2, 6-1, S. Prateek (Kar) bt M. Fariz (Kar) 6-1, 6-1.

Hari Prasath (TN) bt Siddarth Hande (TN) 6-0, 6-3, Manu Bajpai (Kar) bt R.K.Praveen (Kar) 7-5, 6-2.

Girls Under-14 singles (Quarterfinals): Shwetha G. K (Kar) bt Supriya 6-0, 6-2, Amoolya Raghunath (Kar) bt Unnati Purushotham (AP) 6-1, 6-1.

L. Kanimozhi (TN) bt Sanjann Gopal (Kar) 6-3, 7-6, Poojashree (Kar) bt Janaki S.Rao 6-0, 6-1.

Girls Under-16 singles (Quarterfinals): Oormila Ram (AP) bt Prerana Mythri (AP) 6-2, 6-2, Arathi Duraiswamy bt Poojashree (Kar) bt Poojashree (Kar) 0-6, 6-1, 6-4.

K. A. Swathy (TN) bt Laasya (Kar) 6-2, 6-1, Shwetha G. K (Kar) bt Amoolya (Kar) 6-2, 6-2.

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