Thursday, May 23, 2002
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Tennis
By K.C. Vijaya Kumar
India's Vishal Uppal, won ousted Eliran Dooyev of Israel, gets ready to serve in the Indian Oil `Servo' ITF Masters championship in Bangalore on Wednesday.
In the quarterfinals at the KSLTA courts here on Wednesday, second-seeded Ghouse defeated Japan's Hayato Furukawa, the fifth seed, 6-3, 6-4 while sixth-seeded Vijay Kannan overcame a second set slump to oust the third-seed Sandeep Kirtane at 6-2, 5-7, 6-4. The surprises, however, belonged to the darkhorses - Vishal Uppal and Tomer Suissa - who thrived on perseverance to upset fancied rivals. Vishal defeated Israel's Eliran Dooyev, the fourth seed, 7-5, 6-7 (3-7), 6-3 while Tomer scored a 7-6 (7-2), 6-1 victory over Vinod Sridhar, the eighth seed. Mustafa Ghouse served deep and often caught Furukawa on the wrong foot near the net. Serve and volley defined Mustafa's approach but his rival was no pushover. Furukawa peppered his crosscourt volleys with down-the-line winners and softened Mustafa's mid-court saunter. The match lasted just one hour and six minutes as both players preferred belting winners to a waiting game. And Mustafa used his height and better reach to choke Furukawa. Mustafa's frenetic pace found no echoes in the adjacent court where Vijay Kannan's lazy elegance left veteran Sandeep Kirtane clueless. In the first set, Vijay's loping strides and a disarming swing still packed enough punch to leave Sandeep scrambling on his feet. Vijay's groundstrokes and volleys were revving along nicely while Sandeep's strength - his double-fisted backhand - often proved to be his weakness. Vijay, however, slackened in the second set and Sandeep, fresh from his coaching stints, grabbed the opportunity. He used the drop shot and backhand chip to unnerve Vijay. "I lost concentration and he (Sandeep) also started playing well,'' Vijay said on his tepid second set. His anguish rose and fell with his backhands, which played truant while he hopped on the baseline. He, however, had the last shot as his first serves had a better percentage. Vijay broke Sandeep in the ninth game of the third set and served out the match in the subsequent game. "Usually his (Sandeep) strength is the return of serve but then I served well throughout the match and it helped,'' said Vijay. In the doubles semifinals, the top-seeds, first-seeded pair of Nitin Kirtane and Vishal Uppal and the second-seeded pair of Mustafa Ghouse and Vijay Kannan booked their final berths with facile victories. Singles semifinal line-up: Tomer Suissa vs Vijay Kannan; Mustafa Ghouse vs Vishal Uppal. The results: Singles (quarterfinals): Tomer Suissa (Isr) bt Vinod Sridhar (Ind) 7-6 (7-2), 6-1; Vishal Uppal (Ind) bt Eliran Dooyev (Isr) 7-5, 6-7 (3-7), 6-3; Vijay Kannan (Ind) bt Sandeep Kirtane (Ind) 6-2, 5-7, 6-4; Mustafa Ghouse (Ind) bt Hayato Furukawa (Jpn) 6-3, 6-4. Doubles (semifinals): Nitin Kirtane/Vishal Uppal (Ind) bt Ivan Syrov (Rus)/Amod Wakalkar (Ind) 7-6 (7-2), 3-6, 6-2; Mustafa Ghouse/Vijay Kannan (Ind) bt Rohan Gajjar/Sandeep Kirtane (Ind) 4-6, 6-1, 6-1.
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