Mankad, Kirtane to clash for title
Indian Davis Cupper Harsh Mankad and fifth seed Nitin Kirtane registered contrasting victories on Friday to set up a title clash in the third and final leg of the ITF Futures tennis tournament in Davangere, Karnataka.
While Mankad fired out last leg runner-up and National Games gold medallist Ajay Ramaswamy 6-2, 6-4, Kirtane clawed back to shut out eighth seed Manoj Mahadevan 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
The scoreline of the Mankad-Ramaswamy match is not a real indicator of the intensity of the fight between the two. Mankad broke Ramaswamy's serve in the first game of the first set after he had break-point. He called the shots thereafter, effecting another break to go 4-1, before winning the set at 6-2.
However, he struggled in the second set as Ramaswamy broke him early and raced away to a 3-0 lead. But he showed the stuff he is made of as he clawed his way back and broke Ramaswami in the seventh and ninth games to take a 5-4 lead before finishing off the match with an ace at 40-0 in the tenth game.
Mankad later said: "I have played him (Ramaswamy) before and we know each other's game. What I did was to engage him in baseline rallies. I have been playing well this week."
Despite being broken in the third game of the first set against Kirtane, Mahadevan managed to stay in the set, upsetting his experienced opponent in the eighth and tenth games. But the second set saw Mahadevan's service games being broken in the first and 11th games as Kirtane, who lost his service in the seventh, took the set at 7-5 to level the set scores.
In the decider, the veteran from Pune broke Mahadevan's serve in the third and ninth games to emerge victorious.
The fight for the doubles title will be between top seeded Vishal Uppal and Vijay Kannan and third seed Ajay Ramaswamy and Sunil Kumar Sipaeya.
Uppal and Kannan defeated fourth seed Kamala Kannan and Rishi Sridhar at 7-5, 7-6(5), while Ramaswamy and Sipaeya beat Kirtane and Anton Kokurin 7-6(4), 6-2.
Earlier reports
Harsh Mankad storms into semis
Ghouse, Sridhar ousted in second round
Ramaswami upsets Sipaeya
