Sunil Kumar gets a wild card

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 7. The last edition's champion Sunil Kumar has had a change of heart and will now defend his title with the help of a wild card in the DSCL National tennis championship which begins at the DLTA Complex here on Monday.

Sunil Kumar had come through the qualifying event last year, and had planned to skip the current edition to pursue the junior circuit. He was asked to play the qualifying even when Sunil sought a wild card in the concurrently held junior boys section, and he opted to miss the event.

Sania Mirza, who has been making waves in the ITF junior circuit with a recent title in Pakistan following the one in Mumbai, has been given a wild card in the junior girls section, and was given permission to compete in the women's section despite being in the under-14 age group.

The tournament had decided not to give entries in the women's section for girls below 14 years, but Sania had to be exempted as she had collected three AITA points in the season.

Meanwhile, Samrita Sekhar caused a stir when she beat Russian Anna Nefedova 9-8 (9-7) in the penultimate qualifying round in the women's section. The Russian, a regular visitor to the country, had come in advance for the ITF women's tournaments to be held in Gwalior and Delhi in the coming weeks, and thus opted to get used to the condition by competing in the national championship.

The final qualifying rounds will be held on Sunday.

lWild cards: men: Akshay Vishal Rao, Tushar Gautam, Shivang Mishra and Sunil Kumar. Junior boys: Nipun Gupta, Viraj Bhargav, Ashutosh Singh and Rishi Behl. Women: Jyotsna Vasisht, Padma Preetham, Janaki Krishnamoorthy and Nikita Bharadwaj. Junior girls: Sunaina Singh, Parul Goswami, Megha Vakharia and Sania Mirza.

The results (qualifying event): men (fourth round): Vijayendra Laad bt Abhishek Tamhane 9-6; Sarbinder Singh Randhawa bt Joshua Fonseca 9-7; Kedar Tembe bt Amit Tilak 9-2; Devender Singh Bhusari bt Kaptan Karsolia 9-7; Jagdish Tanwar bt C. D. Ajay 9-6; Uday Kumar Reddy bt Ditta Singh 9-4; Kunal Bhojwani bt Dhruv Kumar 9-3; Arun Prakash bt Anant Sitaram 9-6; Girish Ramchandani bt Tejeshwar Chigateri 9-3; Amanjot Singh bt Vikrant Sane 9-4; Anand Radhakrishnan bt Rohan Kranti 9-1; Vivian Chhetri w.o. R. Manoj Kumar; Anjan Viplav bt Harnish Randhawa 9-7; Rohan Gajjar bt Amit Karunakaran 9-4; Nikhil Vijay Murali bt Mahanandan Tyagi 9-5; Jaidev Punjabi bt Chandrashekar Mohanti 9-5.

Junior boys (fourth round): Parantap Chaturvedi bt Manmohan Tyagi 9-5; Dheeraj Shetti bt Saurabh Kohli 9-4; N. Mukundan bt P. Vishal 9-5; Saurav Sukul bt Saravan Kumar 9-5; Arvind Prakash bt Varun Maghikar 9-3; Somdev Dev Verman bt Vipin Sirpaul 9-5; Chatwinder Singh bt Shashank Kulkarni 9-2; Rohan Kranti bt Vijaysundar Prashanth 9-5; Ritesh Chitlangia bt Danny Eldo 9-6; Vikrant Sane bt Vikramaditya Menon 9-3; Vivek Bhakuni bt Alok Bhide 9-1; Avinash Reddy bt Akash Sharma 9-6; Bhuwan Chaturvedi bt Vivian Chhetri 9-8 (7-3); Gabriel Fernandes bt Varun Giri 9-2; Siddharth Sharma bt Sujay Mahadevan 9-3; Abhishek Tamhane bt Varun Oberoi 9-2.

Women (second round): Harsimran Kaur bt Shruti Puranik 9-0; Mansi Modi bt Saranya Pattabhi 9-4; Rati Kumar bt Suneet Sandhu 9-1; M. Kamini bt Nivedita Venkatesh 9-7; Monika Goel bt Sadhana Goel 9- 1; Isha Chopra bt Soni Anita Lakra 9-0; Preeti Rao bt Priya Wal 9-3; Sania Mirza bt Supriya Shorewala 9-0; Aparna Singh bt Shweta Devaraj 9-4; Reedhina Parekh bt Sunaina Singh 9-2; Samrita Sekhar bt Anna Nefedova (Rus) 9-8 (9-7); Utkalika Badu bt Naina Karsolia 9-4; S. Marutha Devi bt Summer Bhullar 9-0; Nandita Chandrasekhar bt Rani Smita Jain 9-2; Priyanka Parekh bt Namrita Gogoi 9-0; Lata Assudhani bt R. Sai Swapna 9-5.

Junior girls (second round): Priyanka Parekh bt Neha Rana 9-0; Olexandra Verkhnyatska (Ukr) bt Jahan Afreen 9-4; Amita Joy bt Pinki Tokas 9-8 (7-3); Aparna Singh w.o. Meera Saini; Rani Smita Jain bt A. Fernandes 9-3; Nona Wagh bt Nishtha Yadav 9-0; Sharanya Pattabhi bt Shilpa Dalmia 9-5; Harsimran Kaur bt Monika Goel 9-1; Mansi Modi bt Jaya Batwani 9- 2; Naina Karsolia bt Neha Phalpher 9-2; Sanaa Bhambri bt Anjani Kant 9-0; Isha Chopra bt Aastha Uppal 9-1; Shweta Devaraj bt Pragya Yadav 9-0; Kalpita Raje bt R. Sai Swapna 9-5; Bhawna Veeramachan bt Saima Khan 9-1; Medhini Sharma bt Geetanjali Sharma 9-1.

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