Tuesday, Jun 10, 2003
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Chess
By Kamesh Srinivasan
Chatwinder Singh in action against Vishal Punna in the ITF men's Satellite circuit at the CLTA in Chandigarh on Monday. Chatwinder won in three sets. — Photo: V.V. Krishnan
After stuttering to a 1-5 start, the local lad fought back bravely, serving and stroking with conviction to take the first set, breaking Punna in the seventh, ninth and 11th games. There was still no rhythm in Chatwinder's game, especially in his serves, and he slid down to 1-5 once again. He could not make the dramatic recovery that he had accomplished in the first set. Into the decider, it was Chatwinder who called the shots initially, as he raced to a 5-2 lead, with a break in the second game. Punna has been handling the men's circuit for some time now, and had beaten the likes of Laurence Tieleman of Italy in tournaments abroad. He showed guts in fighting back from the brink, breaking back in the ninth game. Punna was peeved for being slapped a point penalty by the chair umpire, on the first point of the tenth game, for time violation. The referee Puneet Gupta, when called to the court, clarified to the local umpire that the player could not have been given a penalty without having been given a proper warning. In fact, it was Chatwinder deserved a penalty for racquet abuse, as he not only kept throwing it around in disgust, but walked all over it after playing a bad point. The Hyderabad lad, Punna had finished runner-up to Nitin Kirtane in the last National Games, and hung in gamely, but delivered a doublefault on the second matchpoint to bow out. The match, that had lasted two hours and 43 minutes, had started in bright light and ended under the floodlights. ``I started getting my rhythm only towards the end'', said the 17-year-old Chatwinder, a trainee with the National Tennis Academy, who had been awarded Rs. 25,000 by the AITA for competing in the current circuit. Chatwinder had lost in the third and final qualifying round of the first leg in Mumbai, and had given a good account of himself in the qualifying event of the Challenger in Delhi recently. The Chandigarh lad will play the winner of the match between Eliran Dooyev of Israel and another local wild card Saurabh Singh. In the only other singles match of the day in the main draw, Mustafa Ghouse put out the seventh-seeded Katsushi Fukuda of Japan in three sets. Mustafa was serving and stroking very well and looked capable of pulling it off in straight sets, but for a committing few odd errors that stretched the contest. The Japanese opponent was a game retriever and played his best in pushing the contest to the wire. It was Fukuda who led 4-3 with a break in the decider, but Mustafa, who served nine aces and 11 doublefaults, fought back to break the Japanese in the eighth game. The Japanese lost serve at love in the 12th game to bow out meekly. Mustafa had played for nearly three and a half hours in beating Vijay Kannan in the pre-quarterfinals in Mumbai, and had suffered blisters on his feet, as he had to play a doubles match for another two hours the same day. Looking fully fit and sharp, Mustafa delighted with his all round attacking game. He will meet the winner of the match between Stephen Amritraj and Sanchai Ratiwatana. Meanwhile, there were only two Indians who could make it to the main draw from the qualifying event. Jaco Mathew who lost his final qualifying round match against Janosch Blaha of Germany may get in as a lucky loser, for which he really needs to be lucky, as he has to win a draw of lot against Hendri-Susilo Pramono of Indonesia, as both have a ranking of 964. The results: Singles (first round): Mustafa Ghouse bt Katsushi Fukuda (Jpn) 6-4, 4-6, 7-5; Chatwinder Singh bt Punna Vishal 7-5, 1-6, 7-5. Qualifying event (third and final round): Sanchai Ratiwatana (Tha) bt Gurmehar Singh 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-3; Kamala Kannan bt Aditya Madkekar 6-3, 6-1; Yew-Ming Si (Mas) bt Saurabh Kohli 6-3, 6-2. Hui-Tung Yu (Hkg) bt Arjun Goutham 6-0, 6-2; Janosch Blaha (Ger) bt Jaco Mathew 6-4, 7-6 (7-2); Dong-Whee Choi (Kor) bt Hendri-Susilo Pramono (Ina) 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5); Takeshi Itoh (Jpn) bt Moti Maaravi (Isr) 7-5 (retired); Kedar Tembe bt Ashutosh Singh 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Sanchai Ratiwatana & Sonchat Ratiwatana (Ina) bt Eliran Dooyev & Moti Maaravi (Isr) 6-4, 6-2.
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