Sunday, Aug 24, 2003
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Tennis
By Our Sports Reporter
Winners of the Adidas-MCC National junior tennis championship in Chennai on Saturday. Sitting (from left): Navaneetha Kannan, (boys singles u-14), Rupesh Roy (boys singles u-18), Sandhya Nagaraj (girls u-18), G.K. Shweta (girls u-14). Standing (from left): G. Arjun, M.V. Abhay Prakash (boys u-18 doubles), Vandana Murali and Madura Ranganathan (girls u-18 doubles).
Fourteen-year-old local lass Sandhya Nagaraj picked up after a sedate start to overwhelm Andhra Pradesh's Poonam Reddy 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the girls' under-18 summit clash. The National Tennis Academy (Gurgaon) trainee Rupesh fought back wonderfully well after being outplayed by Saurabh in the first set. Sticking on, the 15-year-old from Kolkata battled a long eighth game on his serve, wriggling past five break points and clinching the game after having five game points. Rupesh then came up with something special in the ninth game— a forehand winner and a forehand passing shot to make it 5-4, and soon wrapped up the second set. But the way Saurabh played the first set— effective first serves, clean winners on both flanks— there was no doubt who the winner was going to be. Slowly limping after the end of the second seed, Saurabh came back, lost his serve in the first game, and soon went on to shake hands with Rupesh. Serving poorly and finding the nets often, Sandhya just could not get her rhythm in the first set. Moreover, a burly Poonam, who unleashed some powerful shots from the baseline, caught Sandhya on the wrong foot. The 14-year-old from Chennai began to get her form back in the second and never looked back once taking a 3-0 lead. In the decider, Poonam raced to a 3-1 lead, but Sandhya did well to equalise at 4-4. Serving to stay in the match at 5-6, Sandhya hit a couple of forehand winners, and Poonam capped it up with a double fault. Sandhya is a student of Modern SSS (Nanganallur) and a trainee of Meenakshi Sundaram. There were no linesmen for the girls' under-18 final, which created its own share of problems. In an entertaining and hard-fought match between two Tamil Nadu boys in the under-14 section, Navaneetha Kannan defeated Tariq Jacob 5-7, 6-2, 6-3. NTA trainee G.K. Shweta of Karnataka posted a facile 6-4, 6-3 win over Assam's Varsha Dutta in the girls' under-14 final. The tournament is co-sponsored by IOB and TI Cycles. Special awards: Promising players: Boys: M.V. Abhay Prakash; Girls: Sandhya Nagaraj. The results (final): boys under-18: Rupesh Roy (WB) bt Saurabh Kohli (Mah) 3-6, 6-4, 1-0 (conceded); Doubles: M.V. Abhay Prakash/Arjun Gautham (Kar) bt Vikram Aditya Menon (TN)/Saurabh Kohli (Mah) 7-5, 4-6, 6-1. Under-14: Navaneetha Kannan (TN) bt Tariq Jacob (TN) 5-7, 6-2, 6-3. Girls under-18: Sandhya Nagaraj (TN) bt Poonam Reddy (AP) 3-6, 6-2, 7-5; Doubles: Madura Ranganathan/Vandana Murali (TN) bt Poojashree/Parija Maloo (Mah) 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-3. Under-14: G.K. Shweta (Kar) bt Varsha Dutta (Asm) 6-4, 6-3.
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