Vinod Sridhar battles
his way into semis

Newly-crowned National champion Vinod Sridhar outlasted Pavel Lobanov of Russia to enter the semi-finals of the $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament in Delhi on Thursday.

The 22-year-old Sridhar won the quarter-final match 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 to set up a clash with second seed Juraj Hasko of Slovakia, who quelled a tough challenge from eighth seed Manoj Mahadevan 6-4, 7-6(8/6) in another last-eight encounter.

Another promising youngster to make it to the last-four stage was Jaco T Mathew, who won 7-6(7/5), 6-3 against Rishi Sridhar.

Mathew will have a tough task when he meets the strong Ajay Ramaswami, who packed off qualifier Kedar Tembe 6-3, 6-4.

That ensures at least one Indian in the final on Saturday, something least expected when all the seeded Indians -- except Mahadevan -- made their exit even before the tournament was into the second round.

The most impressive has been the performance of Sridhar. He amply demonstrated this week that winning the national hard court title -- beating Mustafa Ghouse in the final -- was no flash in the pan. He started with an easy victory over Vishal Punna and then beat sixth seed Boris Borgula of Slovakia, ranked 150 places above him, in the second round.

Today against Lobanov, who ousted third seed Sunil Kumar Sipaeya in the first round, Sridhar fought a ding-dong battle. He started strongly to take the first set without much ado but then suffered a slump in the second set where he dropped serve thrice.

The up-and-coming Indian, however, pulled up his socks in time to clinch the decider, conceding just one game, and the match in an hour and 40 minutes.

Ajay Ramaswami did not have as good a National championship as Vinod, losing in the quarters. He also lost in the first leg of the Futures event at Chandigarh. But here he's been able to strike up a fine rhythm. Having overcome the rampaging Pavel Ivanov on Wednesday, he was confidence personified.

Kedar Tembe too was on a high after accounting for two experienced players, Nitin Kirtane and Vishal Uppal, in the previous rounds but had to give in to the superior strokeplay of Ramaswami.

Mahadevan might have been a bit unlucky in losing a close second set, which saw both the players hold their serve. But there was always a little chance for the wiry lad against the booming baseline shots of Hasko.

Earlier reports
Ajay Ramaswami halts Ivanov's run
Four seeds bite the dust