In a pulsating encounter that lasted for over two hours, Kannan managed to prevail over Sundaram 6-2, 1-6, 7-5.

Sandeep Kirtane faced resistance from fifth seed, Calcutta-based Saurav Panja in the first set which went into the tie-break but gained control in the second to win 7-6 (6) 6-1.

In the other matches, second seed Vinod Sridhar (TN) had it easy against Vasudeva Reddy (AP-7th seed) 6-4, 6-1 while Nitin Kirtane (Mah) beat Jagdish Tanwar (Raj) 6-4, 6-2. In the men's doubles top seeded duo of Nitin and Sandeep Kirtane made it to the last four along with Vijay Kannan/Rishi Sridhar, Vasudeva Reddy/Manoj Mahadevan and Praveen Kumar/Anand Radhakrishnan. The semi-finals in both singles and doubles will be held tomorrow.

Tara crushesJasleen

KOCHI: Top seeded SK Tara of Karnataka, true to her seedings, crushed Jasleen Randhawa of Punjab 6-0 6-0 in the final of the AITA-ranked all India Women's Tennis Tournament here today.

In the 40-minute match, the 19-year-old outplayed Jasleen all through to collect Rs. 6500 in prize money. Later in the doubles final, Tara partnering Sumitra Rao of Tamil Nadu had an easy time against Jasleen Randhawa and Nikhila Natarajan (TN) combination before winning with 6-1, 6-1.