Leander paces into semis

VADODARA, April 16: Italian Mose Navarra is a colourful character. Bright clothing, yellow shoes, constant raving and ranting about how wet ...

VADODARA, April 16: Italian Mose Navarra is a colourful character. Bright clothing, yellow shoes, constant raving and ranting about how wet the bone dry grass courts were! On top of it, he had a spectator nagging him all along. So, is there any wonder that he was demolished by the top-seed Leander Paes 6-4, 6-4 as the Indian inched one step closer to the summit, in the IPCL Cup Challenger, today. Even on a perfect setting at the IPCL Complex, the 312th ranked long-haired Italian stood little or no chance against Paes who has been putting together some good tennis for the last couple of days. Now, it is imperative that the 111-ranked Indian carry his form through the week which would, perhaps, help him break into the top 100, despite his claims about having already broken in.

But that may not be on top of Paes8217; agenda at the moment which would be to see through the next two matches. And, he would have had another Indian figuring in the semifinals had not Prahlad Srinath sleep-walked through the first set,survived two match points and then let go three set points in the second set to go down to an increasingly patchy second-seed Australian Peter Tramacchi in straight sets 1-6, 6-7 6.

Paes is yet to be broken in the last two matches. However, in the semifinals he has a solid Frenchman Anthony Dupuis, ranked 333, to contend with. He has already scalped two seeds on his way to the last four.

Today, fifth seed Eyal Ran was at Dupuis8217; receiving end and earlier it was the third seed Uzbek Oleg Ogorodov in the round of 16.

The left-handed Navarra has a big slice first serve which can draw a player wide for the return before he comes in for the volley. 8220;I was watching him on the advantage court and he had to struggle to pull me away from the court,8221; Paes said. 8220;Once, I took the serve away from him, things were a lot more easier. I am pretty happy with the way I played because I was serving and volleying well.8221;

In the first three games, he had the sun coming straight into his eyes which forced him tochange the toss a bit. That also reflected in the poor percentage of first serves, but unlike old times there was no tentativness on his second delivery.

Paes had break points on every Navarra game in the first set until he managed to break him in the fifth. That was the fifth break point he had in three games and the fact that he did not face a break point in the entire match shows how dominant the Indian had been. But for the first round match, which he termed as the 8220;toughest in the tournament so far8221; Paes has not come under pressure at all and for somebody who is so high on confidence, complacency could one of the factors that can be kept away.

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Quite in contrast to Paes8217; match was the manner in which Srinath squandered a great chance to upstage the 27-year-old Australian. He was nowhere in the first set, but in the second match the second-seed staved off two match points in the 10th and 12th games.

Then came the rather inexplicable tie-breaker. Srinath was right there to take Tramacchi to thedecider when he went up 4-1 with a great down the line return after which Tramacchi double-faulted. He went 5-2 up and held three set points following a Tramacchi error. Serving for the set, he was so tentative on the volley that he couldn8217;t hold the racquet steady. That was it. Tramacchi reeled off the next four points which left Srinath rueing that 8220;he had lost a glorious chance to take the fight to Tramacchi. If it had gone to the third set I thought I had a good chance but I played the volley so badly that it turned out to be a matter of 10 games and a 1000 dollars more.8221; he said.

Results
Singles quarterfinals: Leander Paes Ind bt Mose Navarra Ita 6-4, 6-4; Anthony Dupuis Fra bt Eyal Ran Isr 7-6 1, 6-4; Jan Krejic Cze bt Wesley Whitehouse RSA 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 4; Peter Tramacchi Aus bt Prahlad Srinath Ind 6-1, 7-6 6.
Doubles quarterfinals: Barry Cowan/ Filippo Veglio bt Nicolas Coutelot/ Jerome Hanquez 7-6 5, 7-6 4; Myles Wakefield/ Wesley Whitehouse bt OliverMarach/ Tomas Weindorfer 6-1, 6-3; Semifinals: Max Mirnyi/ Peter Tramacchi bt Barry Cowan/ Filippo Veglio 6-7 3, 6-1, 7-6 6; Wakefield/ Whitehouse bt Sander Groen/ Oleg Ogorodov 7-6 2, 5-7, 6-4.