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Tennis
By Kamesh Srinivasan
Harsh Mankad in action against Hendri Susilo Promono of Indonesia in the ITF Men's Futures championship at the Oudh Gymkhana Club in Lucknow on Wednesday. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy
The Indian Davis Cupper, who has had the advantage of having played matches against the likes of Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt, played a mature game in taming the challenge from Hendri Susilo Promono of Indonesia 6-1, 6-2. Playing an all-round game, Harsh broke Promono in the fourth game of the first set, and reeled off nine games in a row to blow away the Indonesian off the court. Harsh served many aces, and was quite compact with his approach to the net. He volleyed well and had total command over his opponent who had put out the sixth-seeded Suwandi Suwandi in the first round in a third set tiebreak. The 560th ranked Harsh will meet the 613th ranked Vitali Chvets of Belarus, who put out Rishi Sridhar 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. Rishi started well, but lacked the speed of movement and accuracy of serves to capitalise on his ability to play well on grass. The Belarussin stroked comfortably and kept passing Rishi with considerable felicity, leaving the Indian gasping for breath. Early breaks proved decisive in the second and third sets, as Chvets broke Rishi in the second game of the second set and in the fourth game of the third. Rishi, who had hogged the limelight on Tuesday by packing off the top-seeded Mikhail Elgin of Russia was unable to build on the foundation, and thus had to be content with one ATP point. Manoj puts up a fight Manoj Mahadevan played very well against the fourth-seeded Dong-Hyun Kim of Korea to clinch the first set in the tiebreak. Of course, the National grasscourt champion had missed three set points at 6-3 in the tiebreak, but played very well overall to assert himself. However, Manoj was unable to put his serve and volley game to much use in the second and third sets as the Korean kept rifling the passing shots. The 408th ranked Korean also blunted the Indian challenge with telling drop shots. After exchange of breaks in the third and sixth games, Manoj dropped serve in the seventh game of the second set with a string of doublefaults. From there, the gangling Indian lad kept struggling to stay in the match, even as the Korean tightened his grip over the proceedings. Into the third set, Manoj was broken in the third game, and he hastened to defeat by getting broken in the ninth game, with a doublefault. Lalji to meet Tereshchuk Qualifier Naim Lalji of Britain put things in perspective as he tamed the seventh-seeded Mustafa Ghouse in straight sets. The Briton just played well within his limits, stroking smoothly from the backcourt, allowing Mustafa to commit all the errors. Mustafa started shakily, but recovered his touch in time to take the first set into the tiebreak after an initial exchange of breaks. Lalji kept firing the passing shots and together with Mustafa's mistakes, it was not difficult for the Briton to take a 6-2 lead in the tiebreak. He wrapped up the first set in typical style, with a passing shot. In the second set, Mustafa struggled to hold serve, and it was no surprise that he got broken decisively in the seventh game. Lalji, with the advantage of having played three rounds in the qualifying event, most of them on court No.3 on which he was tackling Mustafa, cruised home without any signs of nerves in the climax to set up a quarterfinal clash with another qualifier, the second-seeded Orest Tereshchuk of Ukraine. Incidentally, both Lalji and Mustafa had to complete their first round match in the morning. The Indian was quite sharp in winning the required two games from 6-4, 4-4 overnight to beat qualifier Jason Torpey of Britain. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Tereshchuk dropped only one game, the 12th game of the match, in beating another qualifier Peter Handoyo of Indonesia. The third-seeded Satoshi Iwabuchi converted his fifth matchpoint in beating Rafael Moreno-Negrin of Spain in three sets. The Spaniard dropped his trouser in the climax, in a possible attempt to express his frustration, and was slapped a code violation for visible obscenity by the chair umpire, and eventually fined $50 by the ITF referee. The results (pre-quarterfinals): singles: Vitali Chvets (Blr) bt Rishi Sridhar 4-6, 6-2, 6-3; Harsh Mankad bt Hendri Susilo Promono (Ina) 6-1, 6-2; Dong-Hyun Kim (Kor) bt Manoj Mahadevan 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 6-3; Todor Enev (Bul) bt Vadim Davletshin (Rus) 6-3, 6-4; Tomislav Peric (Cro) bt Alexander Pavlioutcheni (Rus) 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 6-3; Satoshi Iwabuchi (Jpn) bt Rafael Moreno-Negrin (Esp) 6-3, 2-6, 6-4; Naim Lalji (GBR) bt Mustaffa Ghouse 7-6 (7-3), 6-4; Orest Tereshchuk (Ukr) bt Peter Handoyo (Ina) 6-0, 6-1. First round: Mustafa Ghouse bt Jason Torpey (GBR) 6-4, 6-4; Naim Lalji bt Sergei Krotiouk (Rus) 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. Doubles: Mustafa Ghouse/Vijay Kannan bt Sergei Krotiouk (Rus)/Tomislav Peric (Cro) 6-3, 6-4; Hendri Susilo Promono/Febi Widhiyanto (Ina) bt Tobias Steinel-Hansson (Swe)/Nitin Kirtane 7-6 (11-9), 7-6 (7-3); Satoshi Iwabuchi (Jpn)/Dong Hyun Kim (Kor) bt Alexander Pavlioutchenkov/Serguei Pozdnev (Rus) 6-3, 6-4; Harsh Mankad/Ajay Ramaswami bt Hui-Tong Yu (Hkg)/Punna Vishal 6-3, 6-0; Todor Enev (Bul)/Rafael Moreno-Negrin (Esp) bt Yew Ming Si (Mas)/Shivang Mishra 6-4, 6-0; Mikael Elgin/Pavel Lobanov (Rus) bt Ashutosh Singh/Gurmehar Singh 7-6 (7-1), 4-6, 6-3; Vitaly Chvets (Blr)/Orest Tereshchuk (Ukr) bt Jaco Mathew/Rishi Sridhar 6-1, 6-0; Peter Handoyo/Suwandi Suwandi (Ina) bt Manoj Mahadevan/Amod Wakalkar 6-2, 6-4.
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