The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Harsh-Sunil pair enters quarterfinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 22, 2005

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Harsh-Sunil pair enters quarterfinals

By K. Keerthivasan

CHENNAI, MARCH 21. Sunil Kumar was looking for a partner as his British friend had pulled out. A frantic SMS to Harsh Mankad and the Mumbaikar, who too was searching for a credible partner, readily agreed.

The lack of understanding (Harsh and Sunil are playing together for the first time) however, rarely showed up as the top-seeded Indian duo weathered initial hiccups to register a 6-4, 6-3 win over Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin and Murad Inoyatov to advance to the quarterfinals in the men's doubles of the ITF $15000 Futures tennis tournament at the Madras Gymkhana Club courts here on Monday.

Also advancing to the quarterfinals without much fuss were the second seeds Ajay Ramaswami and Vishal Uppal.

The Indian duo, winners in Kolkata, defeated counterparts Navdeep Singh and Gurmehar Singh 6-1, 6-2.

The tall and well-built Uzbeks raced to a 4-2 lead breaking Sunil's serve in the third game. A crucial double fault and a couple of unforced errors from Istomin in the eighth game ensured the Indians draw level at 4-4.

With Harsh holding his serve (he was never broken in the first set), the Indians played attacking tennis to break Inoyatov's serve at love to pocket the first set.

Harsh and Sunil played much better in the second set.

Hitting winners and volleying admirably, the Indians ran up a comfortable 5-0 lead.

Harsh-Sunil pair will now meet Karan Rastogi and Ashutosh Singh.

Rohan Bopanna and Vijay Kannan, who have won five ITF Futures tournaments, entered the last eight with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Arindam Datta and Vasudeva Reddy.

Three Indians — Vishal Uppal, V.M. Ranjeet and Jaco T Mathew qualified for the singles main draw, which begins on Tuesday.

Major General Paramjit Singh AVSM, VSM inaugurated the tournament.

The results (Indians unless otherwise mentioned):

Doubles (1st round):

Harsh Mankad & Sunil Kumar bt Denis Istomin & Murad Inoyatov (Uzb) 6-4, 6-3; Karan Rastogi & Ashutosh Singh bt Thorsten Popp (Ger) & Jasper Smit (Ned) 3-6, 6-4, 6-0; Rohan Bopanna & Vijay Kannan bt Arindam Datta & Vasudeva Reddy 6-2, 6-4; Ivan Cerovic (Cro) & Konstantin Gruber (Aut) bt Fred Jr Hemmes & Melvyn OP Der Heijde 7-6 (2), 2-1 (retd); Simon Greul & Peter Mayer-Tischer (Ger) bt Kamala Kannan & Ravi-Shankar Pathanjali 6-4, 6-3; Kamil Capkovic (Svk) & Jakub Hasek (Cze) bt Jaco Mathew & Vinod Sridhar 6-2, 6-3; Ajai Ramawami & Vishal Uppal bt Gurmehar Singh & Navdeep Singh 6-1, 6-2.

Final qualifying round:

Armin Sandbichler (Aut) bt Ravi-Shankar Pathanjali 6-2, 6-2; Jasper Smit (Ned) bt Martin Fischer (Aut) 6-4, 6-2; Vishal Uppal bt Yew-Ming Si (MAS) 7-6 (4), 6-4; Jaco Mathew bt Nick Monroe (USA) 4-6, 6-1, 6-1; Denis Istomin (Uzb) bt Ajai Ramaswami 6-2, 6-1; V.M. Ranjeet bt Shivang Mishra 7-6 (3), 7-5; Peter Mayer-Tischer (Ger) bt Sun-Yong Jr Kim (Kor) 6-2, 6-1; Woong-Sun Jun (Kor) bt Tetsuhiko Yamamoto (Jpn) 6-4, 6-2.

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