Sunday, Sep 22, 2002
Sunday, Sep 22, 2002 |
| Sport | ||
|
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | Sport
-
Tennis
By Our Special Correspondent
The top-seeded Somdev, a trainee of coach Ilyas Hussain at the BAT Centre in Chennai, played close to his best to tame the 15-year-old Tushar 6-1, 6-2 in 47 minutes. The wiry Somdev served and stroked with confidence. He had little difficulty in smacking winners past an audacious Tushar, who kept approaching the net despite the searing passing shots. Somdev did not put a foot wrong this afternoon, and played the big points like a champion. Twice he faced breakpoints — once in the seventh game of the first set, and then in the second game of the second — but wriggled out with big serves and booming shots. In contrast, Tushar struggled to strike his rhythm, though he showed flashes of brilliance with exquisite strokeplay. The biggest problem with the Chandigarh lad was his anxiety to hit hard, and the youngster erred with the length and direction of his strokes, as he generally tended to over-hit. The 17-year-old Somdev was playing too good to let things drift, and allowed token games for his opponent. Eventually, Tushar had to be content holding serve in the fourth game of the first set, apart from the third and seventh games of the second. He did have gamepoints in other games, but his erratic strokeplay failed to sustain his challenge for long. Tushar had showed his fighting qualities against Somdev in the quarterfinals of a similar ITF tournament in Sri Lanka in January, when he went down 3-6, 7-6 (9-7), 4-6, but could not provide such an entertaining fare to the sparse audience this time. It has been a good season for Somdev, the reigning national junior champion, as his maiden ITF junior title in Calcutta won in February would testify. The lad has been trying his hand in the men's circuit as well, and has been making considerable impact. He will be the player to beat in the next tournament in Mumbai. The girls final was equally one-sided, as the seventh-seeded Pichittra Thongdadh of Thailand caved to a 3-6, 2-6 defeat at the hands of the the second-seeded Chen Yanchong of China in an hour. Pichittra flattered to deceive after a bright start when she led 2-1 with a break in the third game. It could have been better had the Thai managed to break the Chinese in the first game when the latter was 0-40 down. She had the game, but not a strong will to capitalise on her strengths. The 15-year-old Thai, who had put out the top-seeded Sanaa Bhambri in the quarterfinals, broke the Chinese in the seventh game of the first set and the fourth game of the second, but lacked the wherewithal to break her resistance. The Chinese girl, 15-year-old herself, unleashed powerful strokes on either flank to overwhelm the Thai. The results (finals): Boys: Somdev Dev Verman bt Tushar Liberhan 6-1, 6-2. Girls: Chen Yanchong (Chn) bt Pichittra Thongdadh (Tha) 6-3, 6-2.
Printer friendly
page
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
|
|
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | Home |
Copyright © 2002, The
Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu
|
