Sport - Tennis

Vivek’s form continues, completes treble in style

Photo: M. Karunakaran

ALL SMILES: The winners and runners-up of The Hindu-Sportstar tennis tournament. —

Chennai: Vivek Reddy completed a treble at The Hindu-Sportstar tennis tournament at the Krishnan Tennis Centre on Sunday, adding the over-45 singles and doubles titles to the open singles title he had won on Saturday.

Such was Vivek’s rampant form that M.P. Shankar, the over-45 singles runner-up, jokingly alleged after a warm post-match handshake that he was only 36-years-old, and therefore ineligible to play the over-45s.

Shankar came close to avenging the singles loss in an absorbing doubles final, where he and Kartik Kailash came back from a set and a break down against Vivek and Murali Padmanabhan in the second to take the game to a super tie-break.

Kartik lit up the second set with his touch and precision at the net, unsurprising skills for an orthopaedic surgeon.

At 8-6 in the super tie-break, however, his serve let him down. His double fault was followed by two emphatic volleys from Vivek to make it 9-8 in his team’s favour.

Eventually, after seesawing a couple of points longer, the match was sealed 6-3, 6-7(5), 13-11 with an angled winner from Murali, who doffed his cap even before he played the shot.

Ramanathan Krishnan, prior to handing out the trophies, said that the doubles match was a fitting end to the tournament, and that it approached the proportions of a Borg-McEnroe clash.

He then urged other clubs to follow KTC’s lead in organising tournaments for recreational players.

The results:

Singles (best-of-17 games): Over-45: Vivek Reddy bt M.P. Shankar 9-4; Over-60: T. Subramanian bt Muthukumarasamy 9-4.

Doubles: Over-45: Vivek Reddy / Murali Padmanaban bt M.P. Shankar / Kartik Kailash 6-3, 6-7(5), 13-11.

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