Date:21/10/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/10/21/stories/2002102106551800.htm

Sport - Tennis

National championship from today

By Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI OCT. 20 . The cream may be missing but it is going to be an interesting race for the men's and women's titles as the DSCL National tennis championship begins at the DLTA Complex here on Monday.

The left-handed Sunil Kumar, with his new found confidence following good efforts in the international circuit, has been seeded No.1 ahead of Nitin Kirtane, Vijay Kannan and Mustafa Ghouse.

After his title triumph in the same championship when he was a 16-year-old, a lot of improvement has happened in the Chandigarh lad's game and approach. It remains to be seen as to how well Sunil handles the challenge in the absence of Rohan Bopanna, Harsh Mankad, Prahlad Srinath and Vishaal Uppal.

While Davis Cuppers Bopanna and Uppal have opted to rest before the three weeks of $10,000 Futures tournaments starting on October 28, Harsh reportedly has not been able to reach here in time for the National championship from the Satellite circuit in Australia.

It is another matter that he had lost in the first round of the Satellite Masters last week. Srinath has not been playing tournaments as often as he did earlier, and is apparently following the footsteps of Syed Fazaluddin with coaching stints in the U.S.

In the women's section, the top three players of the country Rushmi Chakravarti, Manisha Malhotra and Sai Jayalakshmy are busy playing in Australia and Egypt respectively. Radhika Tulpule, who had also played in Egypt last week, has been seeded No.2, behind Sheethal Goutham.

It will take some effort for players like Shruti Dhawan, Sonal Phadke and Ankita Bhambri to get the better of Sheethal, though each one of them is capable of winning the title here.

It would have helped to add to the competitive flair had the left-handed Megha Vakharia with international titles to her credit in the recent months abroad has been able to make it here, but she is concentrating on her twelfth standard examinations.

Overall, like in the juniors sections, it will be up to the unsung players to grab the opportunity and make a mark for themselves.

With the weather improving for the better, there is no reason why the matches cannot be lively, despite the absence of the stars of the Indian circuit.

As usual, the sub-junior and mini-junior tournaments are scheduled for the second week, and it will be a tennis festival at the DLTA Complex over the next fortnight.

There will be about Rs. 10 lakh rupees in prize and scholarship money, to make it a meaningful exercise for the competitors, some of whom had to go through 256-draw qualifying events to just make it to the main event.

The seedings:

Men: 1. Sunil Kumar, 2. Nitin Kirtane, 3. Vijay Kannan, 4. Mustafa Ghouse, 5. Manoj Mahadevan, 6. Vinod Sridhar, 7. Ajay Ramaswami and 8. Punna Vishal.

Women: 1. Sheethal Goutham, 2. Radhika Tulpule, 3. Sonal Phadke, 4. Ankita Bhambri, 5. Shruti Dhawan, 6. Geeta Manohar, 7. LIza Pereira and 8. Archana Venkataraman.

Boys: 1. Somdev Dev Varman, 2. Chatwinder Singh, 3. Tushar Liberhan, 4. Amanjot Singh, 5. Saurabh Kohli, 6. Divij Sharan, 7. Rupesh Roy and 8. Nihal Advani.

Girls: 1. Isha Lakhani, 2. Poonam Reddy, 3. Sandra Sasidharan, 4. Lata Assudani, 5. Sasha Abraham, 6. Ragini Vimal, 7. Sharanya Pattabi and 8. Swetha Devraj.

The results (qualifying event):

Men (fifth and final round): Kamala Kannan bt DEvendra Singh Bhusari 9-8 (7-5); Saurav Panja bt Sujay Reddy 9-2; Ritesh Chitlangiya bt Vivek Jhaveri 9-1; Parantap Chaturvedi bt Divij Sharan 9-5; Shryansh Sancheti bt Abhishek Jagnani 9-5; Amanjot Singh bt R. Nagaraj 9-6; Shantanu Dhaka bt R. Arun Prakash 9-8 (7-5); Anjan Viplav bt Benjamin Xavier 9-3.

Women (third and final round): Yamini Thukkaiandi bt Varsha Shivshankar 9-2; S. Punam Reddy bt R. Sai Swapna 9-7; K. Pooja bt Swetha Devraj 9-7; Isha Chopra bt Monika Goel 9-8 (7-3); Sasha Abraham bt Priya Pachkawade 9-3; Aishwarya Jadhav bt T. Anushree 9-3; Meghana Paritala bt Neha Phalpher 9-0; Afreen Jahan bt Sonali Sanap 9-2.

Boys (fourth and final round): Amanjot Singh bt Indradeep Mitra 9-2; Wrik Ganguly bt Prateek Kumar 9-0; Gautam Samarth bt Samrat Ghosh 9-2; Vivek Shokeen bt Sandeep Sharma 9-2; Devendra Singh Bhusari bt L. S. Anantha Bhaskar 9-2; Indra Kumar bt Arjun Somshekar 9-1; Anand Kumar bt Jyotindra Kanekar 9-2; Sujay Reddy bt M. Jayakar 9-6.

Girls (third and final round): Neha Rana bt Neha Phalpher 9-2; Alice Joy bt Afreen Jahan 9-5; Priti Shravan bt Satvika Saboo 9-0; Sonali Sanap bt Jilke Nelord 9-1; Priya Pachkawade bt Monica Goel 9-4; Vishakha Sheoran bt Oormila Ram 9-4; Meghna Paritala bt Amanpreet Kaur 9-5; Priyanka Mehta bt T. Anushree 9-3.