Rastogi moves into ITF semis

Karan Rastogi lived to fight another day after advancing to the semifinals despite a patchy display in the USD 15,000 Oil India ITF Futures men's tennis in New Delhi on Thursday.

Rastogi was hardly convincing of his new status of being India's Davis Cup hope in his 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-3 defeat of Korean Kyu-Tae Im in the quarterfinals at the DLTA Complex.

The 20-year old Mumbaikar, who will lead the Indian challenge following the pull out of Rohan Bopanna for the Uzbekistan tie, came back from being a break down in the first set before clinching it in the tie-breaker.

Rastogi, who clashed against world no. 2 Rafael Nadal at the Chennai Open Tour earlier this month, seemed to have got his focus back when he played some sparkling tennis to win the shoot-out after his rival ran him close till 5-5.

But the youngster dropped serve in the first game of the second set, and although he broke back immediately, Im attacked his serve successfully once more to take the game into the decider.

Rastogi then pulled up his socks in time to win the final set.

The other three quarterfinal clashes, however, saw home contenders bite the dust.

Vivek Shokeen, who had shocked top seed Alexei Kedriouk on Wednesday, looked set for another giant-killing act before going down to another Korean, fifth seed Hyun-Woon Nam, 1-6, 6-4, 3-6 in an hour and 43 minutes.

The Delhi lad, included in the Davis Cup squad, did well to shrug off a severe pasting in the first set to capture the second.

He showed signs of nerves when up 5-3 and was broken in that second set, and his Bulgarian rival worked on the minor psychological edge to take the third set and the match.

Ashutosh Singh too saw his fine run come to an end.

The wild card entrant, who accounted for second seed Gabriel Morariu in the first round, went down to Todor Enev 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Divij Sharan offered much less resistance in his 6-2, 6-2 loss to Russian Alexander Kudryavtsev.

Semifinals: Nam vs Kudryavtsev; Rastogi vs Enev.