Four Indians in last eight
of ITF Futures

Wild card Harsh Mankad joined compatriots top seed Rohan Bopanna, sixth seed Ajay Ramaswamy and eigth seeded Vinod Sridhar in the quarter-finals of the ITF Futures tournament in Chennai on Wednesday.

In the quarter-finals, Bopanna plays Ramaswamy, Mankad takes on Alexey Ageev of Russia, Sridhar crosses swords with Viktor Bruthans of Slovakia and Eliran Doyev of Israel meets on Rouslan Nourmatov of Russia.

Third seed Viktor Bruthans, winner of the singles title in the second leg at Gulbarga last week, lost the first set 0-6, but came back strongly to claim the next two 6-3, 6-1 against compatriot Igor Branisa of Slovakia to set up a clash with Sridhar.

Sridhar, who led 3-1 in the first set, claimed the next three games against Ireland's Stephen Nugent to take the set. At 2-2 in the second, Nugent claimed three games in a row to lead 5-2. But Sridhar regained his touch and broke Nugent in the eighth game. From then on he was on a roll and wrapped up the match in an hour and 38 minutes.

In the Bopanna-Yew Ming Si match, the former claimed the first set at 6-1, allowing the Malaysian to take only the fourth game. However, Si was in his element in the second set, as games went with serve. In the tie-breaker, he forced Bopanna to commit errors and came up with excellent forehand winner to win it at 7-6.

In the decider, Bopanna broke Si twice to lead 4-0, but was broken in the fifth game. But the Indian ace served well and never hestiated to venture to the net as he claimed the next two games to win the match.

Nourmatov caused the lone upset of the evening, beating third seeded Vijay Kannan, who put up a stiff fight before going down 1-6, 4-6.

Wild cards Jaco T Mathew and Rohan Gajjar were the other Indians to fall by the wayside.

Mathew was totally off-colour and double-faulted on many occasions, especially in the first set, before losing to Eliran Dooyev of Israel 6-3, 7-6 (7/4).

On the other hand, Gajjar, who claimed the first set at 6-2, allowed qualifier Alexey Ageev to come to terms for the rest of the match. Ageev won 2-6, 7-5, 6-2.

Mankad, who played a tough match yesterday against Sunil Kumar Sipaeya, maintained the momentum and registered a solid 6-1, 6-2 win over Thailand's Sonchat Ratiwatana, while Ramaswamy upset Sanchai Ratiwatana 6-3, 6-3.

Yesterday's report
Harsh Mankad scalps fifth seed Sipaeya