NEW DELHI, February 5: Seventh seeded Vijay Kannan kept his giant-killing reputation intact by crushing fifth seeded Ravi Kiran Bhatt 6-1, 6-1 in the semi-finals of the ITF Junior Ranking (Under-18) tournament, here today. The Davis Cup reserve will meet Jacob Paulsen (Denmark), seeded sixth, who survived a second-set tie-breaker against wild card Kedar Tembe 6-1, 7-6 (7), in the final.
There was some consolation for Bhatt as he, along with Rohan Bopanna, bagged the doubles title. The top seeds beat the Kirgystan pair of Denis Sirotin and Eduard Koifman 6-2, 6-2.
In the girls', top seed Uzma Khan is in line for a double. She breezed into the title round losing just four games to unseeded Austrian Marion Sohm 6-4, 6-0. She meets another Austrian Yvonne Meusburger who upset compatriot and fourth seed Tina Tagwercher 6-1, 6-2. Earlier, Uzma and Trishna Williams, top seeds in doubles, won the title defeating Shruti Dhawan and Sheetal Gautam 6-3, 6-4.
Everything went right for Kannan today. His groundstrokes were on target and his serves worked well. However, he took some time to get into his rhythm. Holding two game points in the opening game, he allowed Bhatt to take him to a couple of dueces. That couple of points helped Kannan raise his game and hold serve.
On the other hand, Bhatt was totally off-colour. The touch that brought him thus far was missing today, even as Kannan began outplaying him in all departments. After going 2-1 up in the third game, Kannan won the next four games to take the first set.
For top seed and national champion Uzma, it was just another day in office. Uzma began with a break and was soon up 4-1. Marion, however, fought back to make it 4-5 but Uzma held on to serve out the set. The second was a wash out as Uzma spent a mere 20 minutes more to complete the rout.
After this tournament, Uzma who won the Colombo leg of the ITF Juniors last week in Colombo recently, will join the Federation Cup team. The team, comprising Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Aarti Ponnappa, RushmiChakravarty and Uzma, will undergo a week's camp in Delhi prior to their departure to Bangkok for the Federation Cup Asia-Oceania Group II matches.
RESULTS
BOYS SINGLES: SEMI-FINALS: Vijay Kannan bt Ravi Kiran Bhatt 6-1, 6-1; Jacob Paulsen (Den) bt Kedar Tembe 6-1, 7-6(7)
DOUBLES: SEMI-FINALS: Rohan Bopanna/Ravi Kiran Bhatt bt Sunil Kumar/A. Vishal Rao 2-6, 7-6(2), 6-1; Denis Sirotin/Eduard Koifman (Kyr) bt Dipesh Rao/Kedar Shah 6-4, 6-1;
FINAL: Rohan Bopanna/Ravi Kiran Bhatt bt Denis Sirotin/Eduard Koifman (Kyr) 6-2, 6-2;
GIRLS SINGLES: Uzma Khan bt Marion Sohm (Aut) 6-4, 6-0; Meusburger Yvonne bt Tina Tagwercher 6-1, 6-2
DOUBLES: SEMI-FINALS: Uzma Khan/Trishna Williams bt Maria Simma/Tina Tagwercher (Aut) 6-2, 6-4; Shruti Dhawan/Sheetal Gautam bt Walterova Dominika/Petra Vostaskova (Cze) 6-3, 6-2
FINAL: Uzma Khan/Trishna Williams bt Shruti Dhawan/Sheetal Gautam 6-3, 6-4
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
