Sport - Tennis

Go Soeda triumphs

NEW DELHI: Go Soeda of Japan defeated the top-seeded Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the final of the $50,000 Challenger tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Saturday.

On a bright afternoon, the fourth-seeded Japanese rode on his luck as much as a solid game to beat the favourite in the climax of the two-hour duel, that fetched him his fourth Challenger singles title.

It was the fourth victory for Soeda in nine meetings against Lu, and the second in as many finals. Equally, it was sweet revenge as Soeda had lost tamely to Lu in the semifinals last week at the same venue.

In a gripping contest between two evenly matched players, the equipment had a final say on the result, as Lu had broken strings of four of his racquets during the match and had to handle the decider from 2-1, when he was a break up in the final set, on racquets borrowed from an Indian player.

He did use one of his racquets strung with a local string, but kept shifting between personal and borrowed racquets, as his game collapsed in a heap of errors.

From being 2-0 up in the decider, when he broke Soeda in a long-drawn first game on the fourth breakpoint, Lu dropped serve, in the sixth, eighth and tenth games.

He did break back in the seventh game but won a mere five points in the next three games.

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