Second seed Aryan Goveas had to fight his way past Suraj Prabodh for a 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-3 victory in the men’s quarterfinals of the Fenesta National Tennis championship at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association (DLTA) Complex on Thursday.
The strongly built Aryan, slowly getting into his rhythm, was able to play with intensity at the crunch to shut the escape routes for the sweet-stroking Suraj, who had made the final two years ago.
The 20-year-old Aryan was on top of his game in the first set, but Suraj fought back in the second to stay in the game. Aryan did have a chance to close the match in the second set tie-break as he led 4-2 but erred thereafter.
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In the decider, Aryan served big and unleashed strong strokes to pull through without much drama.
In the semifinals, Aryan will play Kunal Anand, who got past the former Asian junior champion Nitin Kumar Sinha in the second set tie-break. Kunal did feel a bout of nerves as he missed two match points at 6-3 in the tie-break but stroked clean to emerge victorious.
Kunal currently enjoys a 2-0 lead in the head-to-head record against Aryan in the international professional circuit. The other semifinal will feature top seed Niki Poonacha and the former national champion Dalwinder Singh.
The long-time trainee of Harvest Academy in Jassowal, Ludhiana, Dalwinder was quite sharp and explosive in overcoming the strong challenge from Ishaque Eqbal, who failed to capitalise on a 5-3 lead in the second set.
Niki, in contrast, had a relative smooth sailing against SD Prajwal Dev who has been commendable in handling the tough conditions and many matches.
In the women’s section, Jagmeet Kaur, who is regularly trained by Ankita Bhambri, was quite composed and played a fluent game in beating the second seed Bhuvana Kalva in straight sets.
Jagmeet will challenge the four-time national champion Prerna Bhambri in the semifinals. The other semifinal will be between top seed Sowjanya Bavisetti who saw off the challenge from Salsa Aher, and the favourite Vaidehi Chaudhari.
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Trained by coach Jignesh Raval at the Altevol Waske Tennis Academy in Ahmedabad, Vaidehi has dropped only five games in all to her three opponents so far.
In men’s doubles, Suresh Dhakshineswar and Parikshit Somani who had beaten the top seeds Jeevan Nedunchehziyan and Vishnu Vardhan in the quarterfinals, were ousted by Ishaque Eqbal and Mohit Mayur 10-7 in
the super tie-break.
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