Gajjar’s hard work pays off

Down a break point,Gajjar was one game away from losing the set at 5-3 but he pepped himself up and broke his opponent right back with a backhand passing shot winner. He then held for 5-5 with some more stunning groundstrokes. As Becker’s frustration mounted,apparent from some loud shrieks and curses in German,Gajjar broke him again to go 6-5 up and leaving himself with the easy option of serving for the match,which he did,albeit after a double fault.

Earlier,he wouldn’t last in longer matches. Even recently he cramped at the end of a three-setter so we are trying to do a lot of strength work,disciplining his routines,doing injury-prevention exercises and working on increasing his speed on court. He has got the game,a big serve and he can come from behind but the idea is to get him to finish off points quickly and not be in those come from behind situations,” says Afzal,who now travels on the circuit with the Mumbai player.

Gajjar’s litmus test,however,will come when he faces in-form Saketh Myneni in the quarters on Thursday. Though Saketh played his second consecutive three-setter,he looked sharp against last week’s ITF winner Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan.

The two-hour match saw momentum shifting both ways before Saketh recovered from one set down to seal the match 4-6 6-2 6-3. Jeevan started well,without facing a breakpoint till the 10 th game which he managed to save with three consecutive winners – a volley winner,a passing shot and an overhead smash.

In the second set,the 6 ft 3 inches tall Saketh took his service to another level — dropping only three points on his serve in the whole set. On the other hand,Jeevan’s troubles began to surface as he faced break points in all his last three service games and eventually conceded the set on a double fault in the eighth game.

The unforced errors off Jeevan’s racquet mounted up further in the third,losing serve in the sixth game after hitting the ball wide thrice before Myneni employed a drop shot on break point. The only time Jeevan came close to challenging Saketh’s serve was in the next game when he took it to deuce twice but Saketh hit aces at will and scraped through. Two more aces from Saketh and a couple of wide shots from Jeevan saw him close the set at 6-3.

Top seed Junn Mitsuhashi and Ranjeet Virali also joined the quarterfinal line up from the top-half. Vishnu Vardhan will face Vijyant Malik and fourth seed Daniel Cox will take on Sriram Balaji,who upset sixth seed Nikolaus Moser in the bottom half.

Results: 1-Junn Mitsuhashi beat James Marsalek 2-6 7-6 (1) 7-6 (1),7-Ranjeet Virali beat Abhijeet Tiwari 6-4 6-2,N.Sriram Balaji beat Nikolaus Moser 7-6 (7) 6-3, 4-Daniel Cox beat Weerapat Doakmaiklee 6-3 7-5,5-Vijyant Malik beat Mate Pavic 1-6 6-2 6-3,2-Vishnu Vardhan beat Kunal Anand 6-4 6-1. Doubles: 1-Rastogi/ Vardhan beat Myneni/Mayur 6-4 4-6 10-6,4-Doakmaiklee/ Siributwong beat Manuja/ Ramanathan 6-4 6-3.