Mahadevan waged a grim battle before bowing 1-6, 6-4, 5-7 to the experienced Kirtane in one-and-a half hours while qualifier Meenakshi Sundaram (TN) beat sixth seed S Zaman (WB) 6-2, 6-4. Portly Jagdish Tanwar (Raj) upset a listless eighth seed Vijayendra Laad (Mah) 6-1, 6-1 to make it to the quarter-finals.

Moving into the last eight comfortably were second seed Vinod Sridhar, third seed Sandeep Kirtane (Mah), fifth seed Saurav Panja (WB) and seventh seed Vasudeva Reddy (AP).

In the doubles top seeded pair of Nitin Kirtane and Sandeep Kirtane moved into the quarter-finals with an easy 6-1, 6-3 win over Vijendra Laad and Rohan Bopanna.

The quarter-final matches will be held tomorrow.

Tara, Jasleen advance

KOCHI: Top-seeded S K Tara of Karnataka willlock horns with second seeded Jasleen Randhawa of Punjab in the finals of the AITA All India Women's Tennis Tournament here tomorrow.

Tara partnering Sumithra Rao of Tamil Nadu will take on Jasleen and Nikhila Natarajan (TN) in the women's doubles finals.

Earlier, in the semi-finals, hot favourite Tara routed Tamil Nadu's Vishnu Preetham 6-1, 6-2 in 80 minutes while in the second semi-finals, Jasleen, despite stiff challenge from Nikhila Natarajan, won the match 7-5, 6-0 in 70 minutes.