The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Bopanna sets up final clash with Clarke

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Saturday, Jun 11, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

Bopanna sets up final clash with Clarke

Kamesh Srinivasan

GURGAON: Rohan Bopanna passed a quality test by Vinod Sridhar to move into the final with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 victory in the Indian Oil ITF Satellite tennis circuit second leg at the NTA Complex here on Friday.

Bopanna struggled with a poor percentage of first serves and numerous doublefaults. Coupled with Sridhar's indomitable spirit that often sees him compete at a level above his normal game, it provided for an interesting fare.

Irked by the calls from an inexperienced umpire, Bopanna allowed his concentration to dip alarmingly and it was no surprise that he was broken as many as five times in the match. There was no hint of the unfolding trouble at the beginning as Bopanna raced to a 4-1 lead with a break in the fourth game.

The Coorgi lad had saved as many as four breakpoints in three of his service games to lead 5-2 but dropped serve with a doublefault in the ninth. He cracked a couple of rousing winners to seal the set in 40 minutes, but got broken thrice in a row in the fifth, seventh and ninth games in losing the second set.

Bopanna took a break before the third set, had a quick wash, changed his shirt, quietened the excited nerves and went about his task with usual efficiency as he broke Vinod in the third and fifth games for a 4-1 lead in the decider. Much against the flow, the top seed dropped serve in the sixth game, but broke right back and served out the set after saving another breakpoint in the eighth game.

"I couldn't jump high enough for my big serves. The fact that we had played a long doubles semifinal last evening, when we saved two matchpoints in the second set to win in three sets meant that I was not fresh this morning,'' said Bopanna, who served eight aces and six doublefaults in the match that spanned an hour and 43 minutes.

Quite thankfully, the top-seeded Bopanna and Vijay Kannan did not allow the unseeded Hayato Furukawa and Tetsuhiro Yamamoto of Japan to stretch them for long after losing the first set, as they captured the doubles title that had eluded their grasp in the final of the first week.

Bopanna, who has already played 17 matches in the circuit so far in singles and doubles, will meet Peter Clarke of Ireland who reeled off nine games in a row from 3-4 in outplaying the fifth-seeded Stephen Mitchell of South Africa 6-4, 6-0.

The 25-year-old Clarke, who had enjoyed a career-best rank of 229 in 2002, came up with big second serves and hit heavy groundstrokes with precision in accelerating to a superb finish. He had six aces in the hour-long contest.

The results:

Singles (semifinals): Rohan Bopanna bt Vinod Sridhar 6-4, 3-6, 6-2; Peter Clarke (Irl) bt Stephen Mitchell (RSA) 6-4, 6-0.

Doubles (final): Rohan Bopanna and Vijay Kannan bt Hayato Furukawa and Tetsuhiro Yamamoto (Jpn) 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.

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