Thursday, Sep 05, 2002
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Tennis
By K. Keerthivasan
Rouslan Nourmatov of Russia, who beat fourth-seeded Vijay Kannan of India, in the ITF men's Futures singles tennis championship in Chennai on Wednesday. — Photo: V. Ganesan
Fourth-seeded Vijay Kannan was no match for Rouslan Nourmatov as the Russian cruised to a 6-1, 6-4 victory in an hour and 15 minutes, which turned out to be the lone upset of the day. Hitting powerful groundstrokes from the backcourt, Nourmatov raced to a 4-0 lead breaking Vijay's serve in the second and fourth games before serving for the first set in the seventh game. However, Vijay changed tactics in the second and approached the net to try and hustle him. Nourmatov was equal to the task as he passed him without much difficulty every time. The Russian hardly gave any chance to attack as he consistently hit the ball deep and kept pounding the ball from the baseline. Late in the second set, Vijay did get a few points with some admirable approach volleys, but those came very late in the match. A beautiful lob followed by a stinging forehand passing shot and the match was Nourmatov's in the 10th game. ``He (Vijay) plays only the slice with his backhand. I had many options whenever I played to his backhand,'' said the 20-year-old Russian, who had lost to the eventual winner Bruthans at Gulbarga. He did not take part in New Delhi leg. In a charged up match, Branisa marched over the third seed with error-free and relatively composed play from the baseline to win the first set 6-0. Playing his customary brand of consistent baseline play coupled with fine approach volleys, Bruthans never turned back once be broke Branisa's serve in the second game to take the match to the decider. At 2-2 in the final set, the referee decided to shift the players to another court as the lighting was inadequate. The shift from court number 2 to 4, proved to be a blessing in disguise for Bruthans. After trading breaks in the third and fourth games, Bruthans struck in the fifth and seventh games to take a 5-2 lead. Even though Branisa broke Bruthans in the eighth game, the Gulbarga leg winner closed out the match in the ninth game. Bruthans was given a warning for `audible obscenity'. Eliran Dooyev, the seventh seed, from Israel quelled a stiff resistance from the National junior champion Jaco T. Mathew 6-3, 7-6 (7-4). Matching the power and guile of Dooyev for some time, Mathew did make a match out of it, but lacked the staying power and resilience of the Israeli. Covering the court well, matching the Israeli from the baseline and even coming up with some fine volleys, Jaco raised visions of a fightback in the second set. Down 1-5 in the second set tiebreaker, Jaco produced couple of forehand winners and came up to 4-5, but Dooyev finished the match when Jaco hit a backhand into the net. ``I was not able to match the power game of Dooyev for a long time,'' observed Jaco. Qualifier Alexey Ageev of Russia fought past wild card Rohan Gajjar 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 to move into the quarterfinals. ``I am really happy as I have beaten all Indians from the qualifying matches. All Indians are fine players. Today it was the Russian spirit and not my body that helped me win,'' said Ageev. The quarterfinal line-up: Rohan Bopanna v Ajay Ramaswamy; Harsh Mankad v Alexey Ageev; Rouslan Nourmatov v Eliran Dooyev; Vinod Sridhar v Viktor Bruthans. The results (second round) (Indians unless specified): 7-Eliran Dooyev (Isr) bt Jaco T. Mathew 6-3, 7-6 (7-4); 6- Ajay Ramaswamy bt Sanchai Ratiwatana (Tha) 6-3, 6-3; 8-Vinod Sridhar bt Stephen Nugent (Irl) 6-1, 7-5; Harsh Mankad bt Sonchat Ratiwatana (Tha) 6-1, 6-2; Rouslan Nourmatov bt 4-Vijay Kannan 6- 1, 6-4; 3-Victor Bruthans (Svk) bt Igor Branisa (Svk) 0-6, 6-1, 6-3; Alexey Ageev (Rus) bt Rohan Gajjar 2-6, 7-5, 6-2; 1-Rohan Bopanna bt Yew Ming Si (Mas) 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 6-1.
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