Sport - Sports : General

Hari Balu wins chess title

— Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

V. Hari Balu.

CHENNAI: In the Bertram Memorial chess tournament, V. Hari Balu of St. Joseph’s Club nosed past T. Abhay of SSN on the basis of his superior progressive score after the two were tied for first place.

Coimbatore boy Sriram Balaji outlasted local lad Ajay Selvaraj to win the Stanley Cup in five gruelling sets at the Loyola College here on Monday.

A contest between two evenly matched players, the match lasted over three hours on a breezy Chennai afternoon with just a couple of people from the players’ inner circle present by the sidelines to cheer them on.

The first set was indicative of the things to come with neither player willing to yield an inch. Balaji, who began inauspiciously and lost the first set tie-break, scaled up his game to nail the next two sets.

Showing amazing dexterity up-close to the net, the Karpagam College student broke Ajay in the eighth game of the second to make it a set apiece and continued his good run with another break of service in the seventh game of the third.

Down two sets to one and staring down the barrel, Ajay upped the ante in the fourth, showing good legs and greater stamina even as Balaji’s shot-making sagged a little.

Punching scathing returns from the back of the court, Ajay held on to a solitary break and clichéd the fourth set to take the match into a decider.

With both contestants visibly exhausted, the decider was won and lost in the mind. Balaji landed a crucial break in the sixth game as Ajay — a student of St. Joseph’s College — committed a flurry of unforced errors on big points. After that, all Balaji had to do was hold his service and his nerve.

The results: Tennis: Sriram Balaji bt Ajay Selvaraj 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.