Nitin Kirtane crashes out

In a major upset, top seeded Nitin Kirtane went down tamely to Israel's Suissa Tomer 2-6, 3-6 in a pre-quarter-final match in the Indian Oil Servo ITF Masters tennis tournament in Bangalore on Tuesday.

The southpaw from Pune, a favourite for the title following triumphs in two earlier legs of the Satellite circuit in New Delhi and Visakhapatnam, went down to the unseeded Israeli in one hour and 19 minutes at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association courts.

Suissa had beaten Claran Moore of South Africa in the first round.

Much was expected from Kirtane but the day belonged to the Israeli, who played to his potential and never allowed his opponent to stage a comeback.

"I was off today. He (Tomer) played aggressively. My legs were not responding," said the 28-year-old Kirtane after the match.

However, his cousin Sandeep, seeded number three, advanced after coming from behind to beat Japan's Naoki Arimoto 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Second seeded Mustafa Ghouse survived a scare, losing the first set but pulled up his socks in time to get the better of unseeded Shivang Mishra before prevailing 6-7(6-8), 6-3, 6-2 in a little over two hours.

Unseeded Vishal Uppal surprised seventh seeded Rafael Moreno Negrin from Spain in a cliff-hanger, winning 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (14-12) after a 125-minute duel.

National grasscourt champion Manoj Mahadevan also fell by the way-side, swept away by sixth seeded Vijay Kannan 6-3, 6-0 while eighth seeded Vinod Sridhar booked his slot in the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Russia's Ivan Syrov.

Earlier report
Mahadevan struggles to get past Vishal Punna