Radhika shows Rushmi the door

Radhika shows Rushmi the door
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

CALCUTTA, MARCH 9: Second-seeds Nitin Kirtane and Rushmi Chakravorthi lost to lower-ranked players in the men's and women's singles quarter-finals respectively in the Senior National Grasscourt Tennis Championships, here on Thursday.

Nitin (Maharashtra) lost to to eighth seed Sourav Panja (Bengal) 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 while Tamil Nadu's Rushmi went down to sixth seed Radhika Tulpule (Maharashtra) 3-6, 6-2, 6-7 (0-7).

Top seed Syed Fazaluddin carved out a facile 6-2, 6-3 victory over seventh seed Vasudev Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) to advance to the semi-final and will meet fifth seed Vishal Uppal (Delhi), who got the better of fourth seed Mustafa Ghouse (Mah) 6-0, 4-6, 6-3.

Sixth seed Vijay Kannan (Del) outclassed unseeded Tamil Nadu player Rishi Sridhar -- conqueror of third seed Vinod Sridhar on Wednesday -- to settle for a semifinal clash with Panja. Kannan took only 57 minutes for his 6-3, 6-4 win.

Women's top seed Sai Jayalakshmi had to draw on her reserves to get past Gujarat's Karishma Patel 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (7-5) to set up a pre-summit duel with fifth seed Arthi Venkataraman (Karnataka), who had little difficulty in humbling fourth-ranked statemate SK Tara 6-1, 6-1.

Third seed Archana Venkataraman (Karnataka) prevailed over eighth seed Liza Pereira (Maharashtra) 6-3, 6-1 and will lock horns with Radhika in the semis on Thursday.