Date:08/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/08/stories/2008090861511900.htm

Sport - Tennis

Main draw from today

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: I-Ta Chen of Chinese Taipei will face Abhijeet Tiwari in the first round, as two qualifiers fight for precious ATP points and a clutch of useful dollars, in the PNB $15,000 ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Monday.

With only four singles matches scheduled for the opening day, to give the players travelling from Chennai that much additional time to recoup and be ready to play their best, the focus will be on the lesser lights.

The 17-year-old Tiwari did not drop a set in the qualifying event and conceded a mere nine games in all in three rounds. In fact, he dropped only one game in the first two rounds.

It should be interesting to see how well he handles the Taipei lad in the main draw and possibly build on the momentum.

Karunuday meets Vijay

Wild card Karunuday Singh, another talented junior, sharpening his game in Europe with purpose, will play qualifier Vijay Sundar Prashanth of Tamil Nadu.

Having beaten Sriram Balaji in Chennai, Karunuday will have the confidence to negotiate better players.

The 18-year-old Chandigarh lad Vijayant Malik has been showing some spark but has not been able to graduate smoothly into the professional circuit, possibly for lack of a consistent programme.

He also will be keen to capitalise on the opening round against the sixth-seeded Hsin-Han Lee of Chinese Taipei.

The results:

Qualifying event (third and final round): Nikunj Siwach bt Ajai Selvaraj 6-7, 6-3, 6-1; Whit Livingston (U.S.) bt Ankit Sachdeva 7-5, 6-4; Prateek Bhambri bt Anshuman Dutta 6-4, 6-1; I-Ta Chen (Tpe) bt B. Parthasarathy 6-0, 6-1; Mithun Murali bt Yogesh Phogat 6-3, 6-3; N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt Hari Chidambaram 6-1, 6-2; Suresh Krishna bt Pulkit Mishra 6-2, 6-2; Abhijeet Tiwari bt Palash Tiwari 6-4, 6-4.