Bruthans disqualified after misbehaving

Slovakia's Viktor Bruthans suffered the ignominy of being disqualified from his match against Vinod Sridhar for misbehaving on court during the quarter-finals of the ITF Futures tennis tournament in Chennai on Thursday.

Bruthans, winner of the second leg at Gulbarga, threw tantrums whenever Sridhar made amendments to his game and earned the wrath of the chair umpire, who finally gave him marching orders.

He received a warning, a point penalty and the game penalty before the umpire awarded the match to Sridhar.

Bruthans's disqualification means India are assured a finalist, as Sridhar plays Harsh Mankad, while qualifier Eliran Dooyev of Israel plays top seed Rohan Bopanna in the semi-finals on Friday.

Meanwhile, Bopanna and Vijay Kannan made it to the doubles final, beating the Ratiwatana brothers from Thailand 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

Sridhar once again made a late charge to come back into the game. Bruthans won the first set rather easily at 6-2 but not before he was given a warning for racket abuse midway through the set.

He was set for a runaway victory as Sridhar was unable to get to terms with his game and rarely found success with his first serves in the second set, though he compensated with effective ground strokes to earn points and won the second set at 7-5.

In the third set, Bruthans was leading 5-2. But aserving 40-15, in the eighth game, he misbehaved once again and was given a point penalty, even as Sridhar managed to take the game to deuce. Bruthans was still enjoying three match-points when he surrendered his advantage and lost the game.

Down 3-5, Sridhar won the ninth game and broke Bruthans in the tenth. Bruthans, who was already under pressure, started abusing and Sridhar maintained the tempo to win the 11th game and go 6-5 up.

Sridhar was getting ready for the 12th game but the Slovakian violently flung his racket, which bounced near the chair umpire, who, without any hesitation, awarded a 'game penalty' as per the rules. After prounouncing his verdict, the chair umpire walked off the court, awarding the match to Sridhar.

In the other quarter-finals, Bopanna took just 70 minutes to overcome his compatriot Ajay Ramaswamy 7-6 (7-4), 6-0, while Mankad came from behind to win against Russsian Alexey Ageev 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 in 106 minutes.

In the last singles match of the evening, Eliran Dooyev overcame a fighting Rousian Nourmatov of Russia 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in a marathon 171-minute match.

Bopanna and Kannan await winners of the second doubles semi-final between Vinod Sridhar and Kamala Kannan and Mankad and Ramaswamy.

Earlier reports:
Harsh Mankad scalps fifth seed Sipaeya
Four Indians in last eight