Date:22/12/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/22/stories/2006122204262000.htm

Sport

Bopanna cruises into last four

Special Correspondent

Divij gets past Kondo to reach semifinals

NEW DELHI: Top seed Rohan Bopanna served and stroked with confidence to get past fifth-seeded Karan Rastogi 6-2, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the State Bank of Saurashtra $15,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Thursday.

The 26-year-old Bopanna came up with 11 aces, a couple of them to avoid getting broken for the second time in the second set.

With power and precision in his serves, coupled with maturity and placement in his groundstrokes, Bopanna was a tough nut to crack for Karan, who had beaten him in the ABN AMRO Challenge at the same venue earlier in the season.

Second win

It was the second victory for Bopanna over Karan in the professional circuit after the quarterfinal victory in a similar tournament in Sri Lanka last year.

In recent weeks, Bopanna has been playing at a different level as compared to the rest of the Indian players and that was evident from the manner he beat a top-100 player like Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei in the team event during the Asian Games.

In such a context, it may be a difficult proposition for the gutsy Divij Sharan to challenge the India No.1 in the semifinals.

The left-handed Divij showed remarkable composure as he served and volleyed his way past lucky loser Hiroki Kondo of Japan with a touch of assurance in the quarterfinals.

Sanam Singh got off to a good start, but lost his way in a baseline battle against qualifier Hyun-Woo Nam of Korea.

After winning the first set by virtue of having broken the Korean in the first game of the match, Sanam had the initiative. However, he could play well only in patches thereafter as he lost way even as the Korean tightened his game to come up with an energetic performance when it mattered.

From 3-3 in the second set, Sanam could win only one of the next ten games, which gave a hint about the reserves of his energy, both physical and mental.

The fourth-seeded Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan, who missed a matchpoint in the tenth game of the second set, laboured to beat Todor Enev of Bulgaria in the third set tie-break.

The results:

Singles (quarterfinals): Rohan Bopanna bt Karan Rastogi 6-2, 6-4; Divij Sharan bt Hiroki Kondo (Jpn) 6-2, 6-1; Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi (Pak) bt Todor Enev (Bul) 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(2); Hyun-Woo Nam (Kor) bt Sanam Singh 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Doubles (semifinals): Rohan Bopanna & Mustafa Ghouse bt Vijay Kannan & Pathanjali Ravishankar 6-4, 6-2; Alexey Kedriouk (Kaz) & Sunil Kumar bt Sandeep Kirtane & Purav Raja 2-6, 6-2, 6-1.