Date:26/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/26/stories/2008082656641800.htm

Sport - Tennis

Ronak Manuja puts out Mohit Mayur

Sports Reporter

— Photo: R. Ragu

GOOD Show: Ronak Manuja advanced to the third round, beating Mohit Mayur in the junior National tennis championship.

Chennai: Top seed Ronak Manuja of Maharashtra overcame late resistance from Mohit Mayur to register a 6-3, 6-4 win over the Tamil Nadu lad in the boys’ under-18 second round of the adidas-MCC junior national tennis championships on Monday.

The top seed was a dominant force in the first, dictating points and forcing Mohit into errors. Mohit struggled in his efforts at overpowering Ronak, whose flat shots had too much power.

Consistent

Ronak, despite botched-up drop shots in the first, found his efforts getting rewarded in the second set. The top seed was accurate and consistent, and looked set to close it out when serving for the match, before Mohit stepped up a gear. A series of closely fought games was put to an end when Ronak kept his head to land his shots safely and ensure his passage to the third round.

Third seed Christopher Marcus of Maharashtra breezed past S. Karan (Kar) 6-2, 6-2 in the second round. Christopher’s serves and groundstrokes worked effectively against an error-prone Karan. Seventh seed Sumit Shinde of Maharashtra exited the tournament after conceding his match against Samip Mehta of Gujarat 1-6, 0-4. Tamil Nadu’s Ashwin Nambi made it to the third round in the expense of 15th seed Navin Sai (TN), who conceded the match at 4-6, 6-3, 3-1.

Likitha Shetty (Kar), Shivani Singh (AP), Sansitha Nandakumar (TN), Bhoomi Parmar (Guj), Nehal Sahni (Del), Sai Samitha (TN) and Smrithi Joon (Har) qualified for the girls’ under-18 singles main draw, which will commence on Tuesday.

Other results: Boys’ under-18: Second round: Rishabdev (TN) bt Siddharth Sivakumar (TN) 6-3, 6-1; Vinay Kamenini (AP) bt Bibaswan Deb (WB) 6-3, 6-1.

First round: Rohit Bixit (Del) bt Marcos Gomes (Del) 6-1, 6-1; Sabareesh Hariharan (TN) bt Q. Sumit Nagar (Del) 6-3, 6-2; A. Kashyap (Ker) bt Ayush Mintri (Pun) 6-4, 6-4; R. Sai Avinash (TN) bt Keerthi Rangan (TN) 6-1, 6-4; Haddin Bavn (Mah) bt Sharwin Nawgare (Mah) 6-1, 6-1.

Tushar Mandlekar (Chd) bt S.K. Mukund (AP) 6-3, 6-2; Y. Sriman (AP) bt A. Nikhit Prasad (AP) 6-1, 6-3; Abhishek Alla (AP) bt Atul Sri Patil (UP) 6-2, 6-1; T. G Subhash Kaushik (TN) bt Anurag 6-1, 6-0; S. Supreet (AP) bt Keerthi Nathan (TN) 6-1, 6-2; Sushanta Mohanty (Har) bt Tarun Nath (AP) 7-6(1), 6-3; S.M. Abdulla (AP) bt Rishab Agarwal (AP) 6-4, 7-6 (5).

Ansukumar Bhuyan (Ori) bt Nishant Rebello (AP) 6-4, 6-3; Nischay Rawal (Chd) bt S.D. Prajwal Dev (Kar) 6-4, 6-1; Fateh Deep Singh (PB) bt Rupesh Aadic (TN) 6-2, 6-0; Ajay Yadav (Har) bt Rishab Dev (Chd) 7-5, 6-2; Yash Deshpande (Mah) bt Sanjeev ( TN) 6-2, 6-4.

Vignesh Prabhu (TN) bt Rajan Vir Singh (Mah) 6-3, 4-6, 6-4; Abimanyu Singh (Del) bt Rajat Maheswari (WB) 5-1 (conceded); Vilasher Khate (Har) bt Manish Kumar (Del) 6-1 7-6(5); Madhuriya Dutta (Asm) bt R. Sharath (TN) 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.

B. Sai Reddy (AP) bt Arindam Dutta (Har) 7-6(3), 6-2; Neeraj Elangovan (TN) bt A.K. Pardhasarathy (AP) 6-0, 6-2; Arjun Gide (Mah) bt Rithwik Anand (TN) 7-5, 7-5;

Vinod Gowda (Kar) bt Jatinder Singh (Chd) 6-0, 6-0; Mohd Azar (WB) bt A. Naveen Kumar (TN) 6-3, 7-6(4); S. Siddharh Reddy (TN) bt Shukrit Guha (WB) 6-3, 6-0.

Basil Khuma (Del) bt Darb Anirudh Miland (Mah) 6-2; 6-0; Dev Priya Jaiswal (Bih) bt Anvit Bindre (Guj) 6-1, 6-1; H.M. Yunus (TN) bt Shashank Nautiyan (Del) 6-2, 7-5.

Jude Raymond (AP) bt Nikhil Reddy (Kar) 6/4 2-0 (concd.); Ramkumar Ramanathan (TN) bt Rohan Bhatia (Mah) 6-0, 6-0.