Sport - Tennis   

Yew-Ming Si shocks Ghouse

By Kamesh Srinivasan

Yew-Ming Si of Malaysia who defeated top seed Mustafa Ghouse in the ITF tennis tournament men's singles first round in New Delhi on Tuesday, playing a forehand volley. — Photo: Sandeep Saxena

NEW DELHI NOV. 5. Indian hopes crashed as early as in the first round, as five of the country's best players were ousted in the $ 10,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

Leading the band was the top-seeded Mustafa Ghouse who lost to qualifier Yew-Ming Si of Malaysia 7-6 (9-7), 6-7 (4-7), 3-6 in three hours and 30 minutes.

It was an intriguing contest between two serve and volleyers, who were not at their best, and the winner was decided on one break of serve in the whole match.

``I was confident of winning the match, but it was a very close contest. This is only my fifth tournament in the professional circuit and my biggest win'', said the 23-year-old Yew-Ming Si, who used two different racquets for serving and receiving.

Yew-Ming Si had won only one round before in the main draw. He served nine aces to 16 by Mustafa, but delivered the big ones when he needed them, while the Indian's service rhythm deserted him in the seventh game of the decider.

The Malaysian will meet another qualifier, Jaco T. Mathew who overcame the challenge from Andrea Agazzi of Italy, a fellow qualifier, after being 2-5 in the decider.

The BAT trainee from Chennai, Jaco provided one of the better moments for the Indian fans, on a day when the big guns fizzled out.

The second-seeded Juraj Hasko of Slovakia playing a solid all-round game cruised past Davis Cupper Harsh Mankad 6-3, 6-4.

Harsh looked to be in good touch but his shots lacked the punch.

The Slovak was able to hit the lighter balls with a lot of flourish, and fought for every point, at times with the umpire as he was not amused with some of the calls.

In fact, Harsh was also equally upset with the calls that went against him.

There was no such confusion for the third-seeded Sunil Kumar as he was smashed off the court by another good baseliner, the 898th ranked Pavel Lobanov of Russia.

Lobanov so good with his game that he made Sunil look a novice.

The fourth-seeded Vijay Kannan had his chances against the champion of the Chandigarh event, Pavel Ivanov, but let go the opportunity when he missed four breakpoints in the ninth game of the decider. Vijay had the best chance among the Indians this day to make a mark, but he failed to capitalise on the situation when the Russian was 0-40 in that ninth game.

To his credit, Ivanov did come up with two aces and a service winner to get out of trouble in that ninth game, in which he had to save another breakpoint.

The Russian was tired and dispirited at that stage but his recovery was so good that he broke Vijay's resistance in the next game, as he converted his second matchpoint, as Vijay's backhand sailed long. Vijay had fought back from being 1-4 down in the third set, but could not deliver the blows when it mattered. Ivanov next meets Ajay Ramaswami in the next round.

Nitin Kirtane, the fifth seed was beaten in his crafty left-hand game by qualifier Kedar Tembe, who will have to negotiate the serve and volleyer Vishaal Uppal in the next round.

The reigning National hard court champion, Vinod Sridhar overcame a stiff resistance from Punna Vishal in a second set tie-break to set up a pre-quarterfinal clash with the sixth-seeded Boris Borgula of Slovakia.

The reigning National grasscourt champion Manoj Mahadevan scotched a revival by wild card entrant Saurabh Singh to win in straight sets, and will meet qualifier Joseph Huber of Austria.

Rishi Sridhar had quelled the challenge from Hayato Furukawa of Japan on the day of Deepavali on Monday, but will have the tough task of handling the challenge from the seventh-seeded Jan Masik of the Czech Republic in the next round.

The results: Singles (first round): Yew-Ming Si (Mas) bt Mustafa Ghouse 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-4), 6-3; Jaco T. Mathew bt Andrea Agazzi (Ita) 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4); Rishi Sridhar bt Hayato Furukawa (Jpn) 2-6, 6-2, 6-4; Jan Masik (Cze) bt Vijayendra Laad 6-3, 6-1; Pavel Ivanov (Rus) bt Vijay Kannan 6-4, 4-6, 6-4; Ajay Ramaswami bt Rohan Gajjar 6-3, 6-1; Vishaal Uppal bt Ajay Chowdapalli 6-2, 6-4; Kedar Tembe bt Nitin Kirtane 6-4, 6-2; Boris Borgula (Svk) bt Anton Kokurin (Uzb) 6-1, 6-1; Vinod Sridhar bt Punna Vishal 6-2, 7-6 (10-8); Evgueni Smirnov (Rus) bt Shivang Mishra 6-3, 7-6 (9-7); Pavel Lobanov (Rus) bt Sunil Kumar 6-1, 6-1; Manoj Mahadevan bt Saurabh Singh 6-3, 7-5; Joseph Huber (Aut) bt Chatwinder Singh 6-1, 6-2; Kamala Kannan bt R. Arun Prakash 6-2, 6-4; Juraj Hasko (Svk) bt Harsh Mankad 6-3, 6-4.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Vijay Kannan and Vishaal Uppal bt Parantap Chaturvedi and Divij Sharan 6-3, 6-0; Rohan Gajjar and Manoj Mahadevan bt Boris Borgula and Juraj Hasko (Svk) 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3); Kamala Kannan and Rishi sRidhar bt Ajay Chowdapalli and Kedar Tembe 6-3, 6-7 (6-8), 7-5; Mohammed Yasser Arafat and Amod Wakalkar bt Artur Djabarov (Rus) and Anjan Viplav 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; Nitin Kirtane and Saurav Panja bt Somdev Dev Varman and Jaco T. Mathew 6-1, 6-2; Ajay Ramaswami and Sunil Kumar bt R. Arun Prakash and Vinod Sridhar 6-4, 6-4; Anton Kokurin (Uzb) and Pavel Lobanov (Rus) bt Punna Vishal and Ashutosh Singh 6-4, 6-4; Pavel Ivanov and Evgueni Smirnov (Rus) bt Yew-Ming Si (Mas) and Shivang Mishra 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5.

Qualifying event (second and final round): Artur Djabarov and Anjan Viplav bt Yassir Bouyahya and Kamil Filali (Mar) 6-4, 6-2; First round: Artur Djabarov and Anjan Viplav bt Punna Vikas and Chatwinder Singh 6-3, 6-7 (9-11), 6-3; Yassir Bouyahya and Kamil Filali bt Albert Ballesta (Esp) and Eric Scherer (Ger) 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (4-7), 6-4.

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