Manoj stuns Praveen in opener

Such was Sandeep’s mastery over Udhay. He controlled the spin and placements of his shots to slice up his opponent in no time in the first set (6-1).

He continued to toss Udhay in the second set too. The Maharashtrain broke his rival in the first game and gained his own service to jump into a 2-0 lead. Sandeep did not rest there. He broke Udhay once again in the third and the fifth games to enhance the margin to 5-0.

It wasonly at this stage that Sandeep played cool. Udhay utilising the opportunity broke his opponent in the sixth game with a slicing backhand, which Sandeep hurried it into the net. That was the only silver lining in the cloud for Udhay. In the next game, Sandeep rammed home volleys like a bull in the gate to wrap up the set and match at 6-1.

Saurav Panja of West Bengal, who showed a lot of promise in the earlier legs, could not rollick his way in style as Sandeep did. He had to huff and puff, particularly in the second set, to pull off a 6-2, 6-4 win over a fighting Avinash Arun of Tamil Nadu.

Earlier, Rishi Sridhar set the ball rolling for Tamil Nadu with a 6-1, 6-2 straight set win over P Vishal of Andhra Pradesh. N. Mukundan of Tamil Nadu continued Rishi’s good works with a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 win over Anjan Viplav of Andhra Pradesh.

Manoj wins:
Manoj Mahadevan of Tamil Nadu has truly been a giant among men. At Madurai, he shocked seventh seed Anjan Viplav of Andhra in the pre-quarters andtoday he opened up his giant killing act defeating a dejected S Praveen Kumar of Karnataka 7-6, 6-3 in the first round.A first year commerce student of Loyola College, Chennai, Manoj read his opponent like a book. He broke Praveen in the second game, however lost his own in the third. In vintage style, the Loyolite bounced back to break his opponent’s service in the fourth. The players traded breaks and landed themselves up in a tie-breaker situation.

In the tie-break, Praveen held the centre-stage with a 4-1 lead. Manoj, a fighter as he is, twice broke his rival to square the scores. From this stage onwards, it was Manoj all the way.

Results:
Rishi Sridhar (TN) bt P. Vishal (AP) 6-1, 6-2; N. Mukundan (TN) bt Anjan Viplav (AP); Saurav Panja (WB) bt Avinash Arun (TN) 6-2, 6-4; Sandeep Kirtane (Mah) bt Udhayakumar Reddy (TN) 6-1, 6-1; Rohan Bopanna (Mah) bt S. Settu (TN) 6-2, 6-3; Manoj Mahadevan (TN) bt S. Praveen Kumar (Kar) 7-6, 6-3; Nitin Kirtane (Mah) bt Sangram Chaphekar (Mah) 6-2, 6-2.