The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Prakash sails into quarterfinals

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Saturday, Jul 19, 2008
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Prakash sails into quarterfinals

New Delhi: Prakash Amritraj rode on his fine form to make the quarterfinals of the $75,000 Challenger tennis tournament at Aptos, California.

The 204th ranked Prakash defeated wild card Philip Simonds of the U.S. 6-4, 6-2 in the pre-quarterfinals after having upset the top-seeded Amer Delic of the US 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in the first round in a match that was spread over two days.

In doubles, however, the 24-year-old Prakash in partnership with Lester Cook of US lost in the quarterfinals 7-6(3), 4-6, 5-10 to Noam Okun and Amir Weintraub of Israel.

The Indo-US pair had earlier beaten Roman Borvanov of the US and Artem Sitak of Russia 6-3, 6-1 in the first round.

In the 30,000 Euros Challenger tournament on grass in Manchester, Harsh Mankad and Ashutosh Singh made the doubles semifinals with a 6-1, 6-1 triumph over Pavel Snobel and Jan Vacek of the Czech Republic. The fourth-seeded Indian pair had beaten Pavel Chekhov of Russia and Niels Desein of Belgium 6-3, 6-2 in the first round. In singles, however, Harsh lost 0-6, 3-6 to Tomas Cakl of the Czech Republic. Qualifier Purav Raja also lost 4-6, 4-6 in the first round to the second-seeded Pavel Snobel. Purav and Gouichi Motomura of Japan went down fighting 6-4, 2-6, 6-10 to the top-seeded Adam Feeney and Robert Smeets of Australia in the quarterfinals.

There was bad luck for Rohan Bopanna in the $525,000 ATP Tour event in Indianapolis as he retired with a back injury in the doubles quarterfinals.

Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi trailed 2-6, 0-1 against Ashley Fisher of Australia and Tripp Phillips of the US before conceding the match. The Indo-Pak combination had knocked out the fourth-seeded Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 2-6, 7-5, 10-6 in the first round to gain 40 ATP points.

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