Sport - Tennis

Bopanna cruises into semifinals
By Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI, MARCH 21. Rohan Bopanna continued his good run, as he breezed past qualifier Ben-Qiang Zhu of China 6-3, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the $ 10,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Thursday.

The 22-year-old bounced with energy on court, and was on the firing mode straight away, as he came up with the big serves and solid groundstrokes to catch the Chinese off guard.

Bopanna broke Zhu in the third game and had little difficulty in holding his serve in taking the first set. In fact, Bopanna served so well this day that he did not face a breakpoint on his serve, till he faced two of them while serving for the match in the eighth game of the second set.

With his confidence shattered, the Chinese was a sitting duck in the second set as he got broken in the first and fifth games, as Bopanna paid equal attention to his returns and packed a lot of punch into his groundstrokes.

Bopanna saved the two breakpoints in the eighth game of the second set with impressive serves, and continued to fire the big ones and wound up the match with his sixth ace. The Chinese, who was unable to keep pace with the Indian ace and was spraying his shots, had started walking towards the net even as he saw Bopanna's serve whistling down the middle.

Bopanna may have to be at his sharpest when he takes on Meir Deri of Israel, who beat the champion of last week's tournament in Chennai, the seventh-seeded Branislav Sekac of Slovakia in a second set tie-break. The strongly-built Coorg lad had lost to Deri in straight sets last week, but would be keen to set the record straight.

Another Indian who had beaten Deri last week, Prahlad Srinath, found the going tough against the second-seeded Lee Childs of Britain and lost 4-6, 6-7 (3-7).

To be fair, Srinath lost serve only once in the whole match, that too after failing to convert three gamepoints in the 10th game of the first set. The eighth seed was threatening to take the contest to the decider, when the chair umpire failed to call a shot by Childs `long' at 3-0, that disheartened Srinath so much that he failed to win another point in the tie-break.

To his credit, Childs was no kid on court and fired his backhand returns with consummate ease and seemed to have the knack to deliver something special on the big points.

Mazur dismisses Uppal

Childs will meet the fifth-seeded Dmitri Mazur of Uzbekistan, who looked like a champion boxer, but played his tennis well enough to dismiss Vishaal Uppal 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and a half.

Vishaal lacked the sting in his serves, though he may have been tempted to believe that the umpire took the venom away from his serves with a few bad calls. When the serve was not coming that good, there was no question of Vishaal putting his volleying skills to any effect. His groundstrokes too lacked the direction and precision, which made it difficult for Vishaal to fight Mazur who had an effective game that was backed by solid athleticism.

The Uzbek broke Vishaal in the first and ninth games of both the sets, as the match looked to be moving on a set pattern. Vishaal did break back in the sixth games of both the sets, but was not strong enough with his serves this day to make a fight of it.

Yet, Vishaal should be happy with his quarterfinal appearances in both Chennai and here, as he had returned to the professional circuit after a long lay-off. More than the $290 and two ATP points, the effort here should keep the serve and volleyer in a good frame of mind for an assault at the elusive National grasscourt title when he stakes his challenge next week in Kolkata.

In doubles, Rohan Bopanna and Vijay Kannan made their third successive final entry without much fuss. The duo had won the title in Colombo and lost the final, missing six matchpoints in Chennai.

In the final on Friday, the Indian pair will take on the Thai wild card entrants, Sanchai Ratiwatana and Sonchat Ratiwatana, who brushed past the challenge from Kamala Kannan and Vinod Sridhar for the loss of four games.

The results:

Singles (quarterfinals): Rohan Bopanna bt Ben-Qiang Zhu (Chn) 6-4, 6-2; Meir Deri (Isr) bt Branislav Sekac (Svk) 6-2, 7-6 (7-5); Dmitri Mazur (Uzb) bt Vishaal Uppal 6-4, 6-4; Lee Childs (GBR) bt Prahlad Srinath 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

Doubles (semifinals): Rohan Bopanna and Vijay Kannan bt Yu Wang and Ben-Qiang Zhu (Chn) 6-3, 6-2; Sanchai Ratiwatana and Sonchat Ratiwatana (Tha) bt Kamala Kannan and Vinod Sridhar 6-3, 6-1.

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