Date:22/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/05/22/stories/2006052206291700.htm

Sport - Tennis

The heat is on for Karan & Co.

Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI: A few showers may have provided some relief from the scorching summer in north India, but the heat continues unabated. In such a setting, it would be a big test of physical fitness when Karan Rastogi and company try to showcase their potential in the $15,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here from Monday.

After two weeks of women's tennis at the same venue, some of the best Indian men's players will try to make a mark against a clutch of quality foreign participants, led by the top seed Henry Adjei-Darko of Ghana.

The last minute pull out of Davis Cuppers Harsh Mankad and Rohan Bopanna may have taken some sheen away, but it would be interesting to watch the likes of Navdeep Singh and Vishnu Vardhan who gave a good account of themselves in the recent Satellite circuit.

A few others like National champion Vishaal Uppal and Vivek Shokeen had undergone a rigorous training stint with Australian coach Chris Kachel and how well they perform remains to be seen.

The seedings: 1. Henry Adjei-Darko (Gha), 2. Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz), 3. Karan Rastogi, 4. Nick Monroe (U.S.), 5. Murad Inoyatov (Uzb), 6. Vishaal Uppal, 7. Sunil Kumar and 8. Vinod Sridhar.

The results (third and final qualifying round): Mustafa Ghouse bt Michael Leong (Sol) 6-1, 6-3; Aditya Madkekar bt Vijay Siwach 6-1, 6-3; Vijay Paul (U.S.) bt Dai Chiao Lin (Tpe) 3-6, 6-3, 6-1; Nishank Mishra bt Rahil Makharia 6-1, 6-3; Sriram Balaji bt Nikhil Vijay Murali 6-3, 6-2; Sumit Prakash Gupta bt Burnham Arlidge (GBr) 6-3, 6-3; Yuda Shieh (Tpe) bt Kavan Sejpal 6-1, 6-1.