MUMBAI, May 1: Hrushida Kamthe, playing her first tournament after more than a year of injury-related lay-off, announced her comeback in the circuit knocking out the second seed Archana Venkataraman in the women's singles quarter-finals of the Maharashtra State Hard Court Tennis Championship at the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) Courts today.

The Pune girl, who last played competitive tennis in December 1995, slugged it out for two-and-a-half hours against Karnataka's Archana before winning 6-2 5-7 6-1.

The other upset of the day came in the men's quarter-final, where fourth seed Intikhab Ali proved to be Andhra Pradesh's Y Sandeep's bunny once again, losing 5-7, 4-6 in straight sets. Sandeep, a wild card entrant here, had recently beaten him in Ahmedabad as well.

The top seeds in both the men's and women's section had an unusually tough match, both needing three sets to make it to the semi-finals. Gaurav Natekar beat eighth-seed Jagdish Tanwar of Rajasthan 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, while Tamil Nadu's Rushmi Chakravarthy saved a match point in overcoming unseeded Mable Abraham of Maharashtra 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 7-5.

Kamthe, after pocketing the first game with ease, was serving with three match points at 5-2 in the second, when she almost choked. A missed backhand and two double faults brought Archana right back into the game as she took the next five games in a row. The unseeded Kamthe, however, got her act together in the final set to book her passage to the semi-final where she now meets the third seed Janaki Krishnamurthy of Maharashtra.

Janaki dispatched fifth seed Aparna Sinivasan in double quick time, winning 6-3, 6-2.

The last women's match also went to three sets as unseeded Nehal Chopra, who beat fourth seed Arathi Venkataraman yesterday, lost to another unseeded player, Reetu Sethi of Maharashtra 2-6, 6-1, 6-7 (4-7).

Rushmi, who hadn't lost a single game to Mable in the last two times they met, just could not get her rhythm today. Mable, who upset seventh seed Jutika Choksi yesterday, got off to a flying start, racing to a 4-0 lead in the first set before Rushmi forced a tie-breaker.

In the final set, the 17-year-old FYBCom student of HR College was on the verge of the biggest win of her career, when she had a match point leading 5-4 on Rushmi's serve. But she hit a backhand over the line and the Tamil Nadu girl seized the opportunity.

Third seed Harsh Mankad was in devastating form against his doubles partner Chandraveer Singh of Rajasthan, walloping him 6-0, 6-2. The match finished even before the women's quarter-finals in the adjacent courts could get over.

Natekar found himself in a spot of trouble against an inspired eighth seed. Tanwar went neck and neck with the top seed till the 10th game of the first set before losing 4-6.

He won the second and was leading 4-3 in the third when Natekar went into overdrive. Three aces in the eighth game effectively sealed the issue.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.