Laad upsets Ghouse

NEW DELHI, JUNE 7: Vijayendra Laad had his revenge today. Coming back from a set behind, Laad defeated a more fancied Mustafa Ghouse 4-6,...

NEW DELHI, JUNE 7: Vijayendra Laad had his revenge today. Coming back from a set behind, Laad defeated a more fancied Mustafa Ghouse 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 on the opening day of the New Delhi leg of the ITF Men8217;s satellite Masters tournament here. Maharashtra8217;s Ghouse had beaten him in the Bangalore leg. Laad now meets eighth seed Shivshankar Kambargimath in the second round.

Also advancing to the second round, were the Kirtane cousins of Pune. Left-handed Nitin Kirtane, who complained of chest pains, managed to overcome another talented youngster Rohan Bopanna 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 on a day when the temperature once again soared abnormally. Kirtane, the reigning hardcourt champion, lost the second set, but kept up the pressure just enough to win the decider, to move into a second round clash with American Le Mihn.

His cousin Sandeep Kirtane, however, found it quite easy, defeating Ravi Kiran 6-3, 6-1. Sandeep now faces top seed Prahlad Srinath who received a bye in the first round.

In a battle of Australians, Ashley Ford and Steven Bourke, slugged it out for over three hours to provide the best excitement of the day. Ford ultimately prevailed 6-7 6-8, 6-3, 7-6 10-8

Ford and Bourke contested the first set quite hard and after holding serves to take the set into tie-breaker, the latter clinched it with a narrow 8-6 verdict.

Ford, who has failed to impress in the earlier three legs, collecting just five points, lifted the quality of his game to win the second set 6-3. In the decider, both battled till the end before Ford smashed a winner for 10-8 score in the tie-break. The Aussie meets third seeded Indian Syed Fazaluddin here tomorrow.

In other first round action, Vishal Uppal moved past Shailesh Dhoble 7-5, 6-1 while former national hardcourt champion Vasudeva Reddy defeated Andrei Youznyi of Russia 6-3, 6-4.

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Uppal runs into fourth seed Harsh Mankad and Reddy faces Vinod sridhar, the fifth seed.

Youznyi invited the wrath of the tournament referee Hanyel-Khafief when he argued over the conditions of the balls. A ball brust while in play and Reddy called for re-play of the point to which Youznyi objected to.

While Reddy dispatched off Youznyi, another Russian Dimitri Mazur quelled a spirited challenge of Manoj Mahadevan 6-4, 5-7, 6-0. Mahadevan, after losing the first set, made amends to his game hitting some good passing winners to win the set 7-5 but the heat and Mazur8217;s tenacity caught up with the Indian as he was blanked in the decider. Mazur meets Uzbek Anton Kokurin in the second round.

Top junior Vijay Kannan wasted three match-points in the second set against Anand Radhakrishnan before winning 6-3, 6-7 8-10, 6-1 to set up last 16 tie against the dangerous third seed Artem Derepasko of Russia.