MUSCAT: Favourite Sanjana Girish retained the girls under-16 singles title at the at the Falcon Insurance Company-sponsored Annual Tennis Tournament organised by the Indian Social Club.
In the final, Sanjana defeated Madhu Mitra with a 6-0, 6-1 result. The two ISM team-mates exchanged lengthy rallies and played strong ground-strokes throughout the match and gained valuable practice on the eve of their departure to India to participate in the CBSE National Championships. Left-hander Sanjana showed more consistency and variety in her ground strokes. Madhu Mitra matched the ground strokes when it came to power but lacked the mindset to finish the point.
R Murali won both his opening men’s and veteran’s singles rounds. In other first round of the men’s singles, Murali overcame Shyam Kolluru 8-3 and in the veterans’ singles, he defeated I Zekiel 8-3. In other first round matches, Suhail Khan posted a convincing 8-1 victory over Ganesh S, Domnic Kennedy was kept on his toes before downing M Karthikeyan 8-4, the big-serving and hard-hitting Mohammed Azharuddin beat M Gurusamy 8-2 and Percy Pereira retrieved everything that came to him and outplayed S Vishwanathan 8-0.
PS Sriram entered the second round of the veterans singles after defeating M Gurusamy 8-3 so did Daraius Basu coasting to a 8-2 win over Deepak Venkatesan.
Moha-Girish survive scare
The fancied doubles team of Mohan Kannan and KK Girish advanced to the semifinals of the men’s doubles but not before surviving a scare.
The third seeded duo of Mohan Kannan and KK Girish scraped into the last-four stage after edging to a nervy 8-7 (7-1) victory over Percy and Ronnie Pereira in the quarterfinal.
The Pereira brothers stunned the third seeds with brilliant teamwork and gradually raced to a 4-2 lead. Mohan and Girish rallied to 4-all and broke again for a 6-4 lead. The Pereira brothers fought back to six-game-all and broke for the crucial break and were serving for the match when Mohan and Girish held firm and saved two match points and broke to force the tie-breaker. Percy and Ronnie lost their way in the tie-breaker and the third seeds dominated to win it 7-1. In another men’s doubles quarterfinal match, the second seeded team of Suhail Khan and R Murali progressed to the last four with a fine 8-4 victory over the team of Mohamed Azharuddin and Ajay Jhavar.
The duo of J Kaavya and Rohan Sebastian advanced to the quarterfinals of the junior doubles after surviving tense moments to overcome the team of Stuti Mathur and Madhu Mitra with a narrow 8-7 (7-5) victory in the tie-breaker. Kaavya and Rohan took the early 4-1 lead but lost momentum as Stuti and Madhu Mitra rallied to level the score. Kaavya and Rohan looked set for victory when Stuti and Madhu Mitra levelled to force the tie-breaker. Kaavya and Rohan struggled in the tie-breaker but hung in to win the tense battle.
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