Sridhar halts Verman's run
Vinod Sridhar halted young Somdev Dev Verman's amazing run to move into the men's final in the
DSCL National Open tennis championships at the DLTA Courts in Delhi on Friday.
Somdev, a product of Britannia-Amritraj Tennis Academy in
Chennai and the reigning junior national champion, had a
memorable tournament, beating more experienced players like Kamala Kannan and Sourav Panja. But in the semi-finals today, the sixth seed Sridhar proved a bit too tough for him as he
went down 0-6, 6-7(2/7), 2-6.
Sridhar will take on fourth seed Mustafa Ghouse in the final on Saturday. Ghouse ousted
second seed Nitin Kirtane 7-5, 6-4 in the other semi-final.
In the women's semi-finals, Sonal Phadke beat Sheetal
Goutham 7-6(8/6), 6-3 while Isha Lakhani powered past Ankita
Bhambri 6-3, 7-5.
Nitin Kirtane later combined with Saurabh Panja to clinch
the men's doubles title. The pair defeated Rohan Gajjar and Ajay
Ramaswamy 7-6, 4-6, 6-4.
Ragini Vimal and Priyanka Parekh beat Sharanya Pattabi and Nivedita Venkatesh 6-1, 6-4 to win the girls'
under-18 crown.
Somdev was probably tired, having to play in the boys' under-18 as well. But
he refused to make any excuse, saying: "I was mentally prepared
for it. It was a tough match and he played well."
