In the match played under floodlights, Sridhar lost the first set 2-6 only to fight back and win the second 6-2. The decider turned out to be a cliff-hanger with Sridhar finally prevailing 7-5. Sridhar had won the first round by default after his opponent Saurav Panja had conceded due to an injury. He will now meet second seed Vadim Kutsenko in the semi-final tomorrow.

Sandeep Kirtane finally met his match in Oleg Ogorodov of Uzbekistan today. After defeating seventh seed Harsh Mankad yesterday in straight sets, Kirtane got the taste of the same medicine at the hands of the top seed in the quarter-finals. Ogorodov, ranked 217 at the end of the October, rolled past Kirtane 6-0,6-1 to set up a semi-final clash against local boy and fourth seed Syed Fazaluddin.

The fourth seed had a much more difficult entry into the last four. He needed three sets to beat sixth seed Danai Udomchoke of Thailand. After taking the first set 6-4, Fazaluddin appeared to tire a little. Udomchoke grabbed his chance to play some excellent tennis to draw even by winning the second set 6-3. Fazaluddin had the sparse crowd behind him and that helped him to raise his game by that extra bit. The 11th game of the deciding set proved crucial as Fazaluddin took it and wrapped the match by winning the last game for a set score of 75-5.

In the other half of the draw, the second seed from Uzbekistan Vadim Kutsenko had a fairly easy 6-1, 6-3 win over countryman Abdulhamid Makharamov. In the doubles, Vishal Gupta and Vishal Uppal upset fourth seed Makharamov and Udomchoke 7-6 (7-40, 6-4.

Results

Singles (quarter-finals): Oleg Ogorodov bt Sandeep Kirtane 6-0 6-1; Syed Fazaluddin bt Danai Udomchoke 6-4 3-67-5; Vadim Kutsenko bt Abdulhamid Makharamov 6-1 6-3; Vinod Sridhar bt Patrick Erhardt 2-6 6-2 7-5Doubles (semi-finals): Kutsenko & Ogorodov bt S Kirtane & N Kirtane 6-4 6-0; V Gupta & V Uppal bt D Udomchoke & A Makharamov 7-6 (7-4) 6-4.

Xavier storms into semis

NEW DELHI: Harshit Sharma of West Bengal and Benjamin Xavier of Maharashtra scored identical 6-3 6-3 victories ousting Delhi boys Nikhil V Murali and Ashutosh Singh respectively to cruise into the semi-finals of the AITA All-India Junior (u-14 & u-16) Ranking Tennis Tournament at the DTA courts today.

Results (all quarter-finals)

Boys u-16: Harshit Sharma (WB) bt Nikhil Vijay Murali (Del) 6-3 6-3; Anant Sitaram (AP) bt CS Mohanty (Del) 6-4 7-6 (4); Benjamin Xavier (Mah) bt Ashutosh Singh (Del) 6-3 6-3; Sunil Kumar (Chd) bt Pratim Parekh (Mah) 6-2 3-6 6-3

U-14: Nishank Mishra (Del) bt Arif Hyder (AP) 6-3, 6-0; Arun Prakash bt Devender Singh Bhusari (Guj) 6-7(5) 6-1 6-2; Rohan Gajjar (Mah) bt AR Anand Kumar (AP) 6-4 6-1;Nikhil Vijay Murali (Del) bt Vikrant Sane (Mah) 3-6 6-4 6-3

Girls (u-14): Lata Assudani (Mah) bt Deepa Chakrabarty (Guj) 6-0 2-0; (conceded); Preeti Rao (TN) bt B Suchita 6-4 6-4; Radha Devendrappa (Kar) bt Sania Mirza (AP) 6-2 6-7 (5) 7-5; Isha Lakhani (Mah) bt Samrita Shekar (TN) 6-2 6-2

U-16: T Yamini (TN) bt Vishika Chhetri (Del) 6-1 6-1; Sasha Abraham (AP) bt Jitisha Shelarka (Mah) 7-6 (5) 7-5; Samrita Shekar (TN) bt Medini Sharma (Mah) 6-2 7-5; Y Lakshmi Reddy (AP) bt Isha Lakhani (Mah) 3-6 7-5 6-2