Sipaeya lets Simpatiaji off the hook

Sunil Kumar Sipaeya failed to covert two match-points and let Indonesian Prima Simpatiaji off the hook in a second round match in the third leg of the ITF men's Satellite tennis tournament in Delhi on Wednesday.

Sipaeya, a former Asian junior champion, was up 5-3, 40-15 in the decider, but then fumbled on an easy drop shot and hit a backhand wide to gift away the advantage.

Simpatiaji, the fourth seed, made the most of the reprieve to break back and went on to win the tie-breaker and the second round match 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) at the DLTA Complex.

It was all a waste of effort as the southpaw worked hard to fight his way back into the match after the Indonesian had threatened to run away with the match when he won the second set in convincing fashion.

Top seed Prakash Amritraj went through by default. He served and volleyed in style to win the the first set 6-2 and was leading 1-0 in the second when his opponent, Vishal Uppal, retired hurt, citing sore shoulders.

The acute pain on his serving arm has been troubling Uppal for quite some and the injury also kept the Davis Cup player out of the national hard courts event last year.

Amritraj, winner of the second leg at Chandigarh, will next play sixth seed Vinod Sridhar, who showed his improved game by beating Dong Hee Choi of Korea 6-1, 6-4.

Third seed Vijay Kannan was the other Indian to enter the quarter-finals after knocking out Katsushi Fukuda of Japan 6-4, 7-5.

Eighth seed Rohan Gajjar though was put in place by Takeshi Itoh of Japan, who won 6-3, 6-7 (2/7), 6-2 to make it to the quarter-finals.

Kedar Tembe's fine run too came to an end as he went down 6-7 (3/7), 3-6 to seventh seed Febi Widhiyanto of Indonesia.

Facing Widhiyanto tomorrow will be second seed Daniel Kiernan of Great Britain, who huffed and puffed to a 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 victory past Japanese Hayato Furukawa.

Brian Hung of Hong Kong, who ousted fifth seed Mustafa Ghouse yesterday, continued his onslaught with a 6-2, 6-2 demolition of compatriot Hiu Tung Yu.

Hung faces player of the day Simpatiaji in the quarter-finals.