Sipaeya wins maiden ITF title

Asian Junior champion Sunil Kumar Sipaeya won his maiden circuit title, beating Vijay Kannan 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) in the $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA courts in Delhi, on Saturday.

Sipaeya, who has been named in India's Davis Cup team which will play Australia next month, struck form early, and came up with accurate serves and elegant forehands down the baseline. A classy forehand winner and service return in the third game showed his confidence though he had to wait till the seventh game to get his break.

Kannan suddenly seemed to develop feet of clay. In an effort to win back the break, he began to approach the net more but Sipaeya repeatedly passed him on both sides of the court. Soon he dropped his next serve and with it the set.

As the game moved into the second set, the Chennai lad seemed to have more problems. He managed to hold his serve but struggled to get his first serves in, thereby failing to put pressure on his opponent.

Also, one rarely saw him play his backhand slice which he used to telling effect in his elimination of Rohan Bopanna on Friday. Today, he kept feeding to Sipaeya's strength.

Sipaeya continued to grow in confidence. He came up with more crosscourt winners as the drama approached the climax, and although he was forced to avert two break-points in the ninth game, it was clear who held the upperhand.

He went 4-1 up in the tie-break, although on a questionable call, before wrapping the set in quick time.

Earlier report
Kannan to meet Sipaeya in final