Narsimhan in under-12 final

PUNE, FEB 25: The bottom line of every tennis youngster should be one should not be scared of hitting the ball.' Seeing Mehul Kenia toda...

PUNE, FEB 25: The bottom line of every tennis youngster should be one should not be scared of hitting the ball.8217; Seeing Mehul Kenia today, it was amply displayed by the boy from Kolhapur that in a short span of his carrier in this sport, he does possess the quality of a promising player.

The 12-year-old went down fighting to top seed Keshavan Narsimhan of Mumbai. But finally it was the experience of playing throughout the year, which helped Keshavan prevail over every good shots hit by Mehul. After a three marathon sets played over two hours, Mehul at the final stage seemed to have run out of stamina losing a well fought battle 5-7, 7-5, 4-6 to the top seed in the under-12 semi-final encounter of the Hero Honda-MSLTA Masters junior tennis tournament at PYC Gymkhana.

Pune8217;s Vrushali Gawhankar also scored an upset win, defeating second seed Kalpita Raje of Mumbai 6-2, 6-3 in the under-16 quarter-final.

RESULTS Prefix denotes seedings BOYS U-10 S/F: 1. Arnav Jain Mum bt Tejas Chaukulkar Pn6-2, 6-3; Bhushan Sardesai Sag bt 4. Hryday Chheda Mum 6-3, 6-2.

U-12 S/F: 1. Keshavan Narsimhan Mum bt Mehul Kenia Kol 7-5, 5-7, 6-4; 3. Gautam Samarth Pn bt Alon Moses Mum 6-2, 6-3.

U-14 S/F: 1.Vikrant Sane Pn bt Ankit Doshi Mum 6-1, 6-0; 2.Rohan Gajjar Mum bt Shashank Kulkarni Pn 6-4, 6-0.

GIRLS U-10 S/F: 2. Roshni Luthra Mum bt 3. Nikita Atal Pn 6-2, 6-2; 1. Moneeza Siddiqui Mum bt 4. Parija Maloo Khamgaon 6-4, 6-4.

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U-12 S/F: Shraddha Lodha Pn bt Nidhi Shah Mum 6-1, 6-1; Ronak Shah bt Tulshi Metha Mum 6-1, 6-1.

U-14 S/F:2. Isha Lakhani Mum bt Krushmi Chedda Mum 6-2, 6-2; 1. Megha Vakharia Mum bt Sowmya Kowtha Mum 6-4, 6-3.

U-16 Q/F: 1.Noopur Desai Pn bt Avanee Gokhale Pn 6-2, 6-0; 3. Ashlesa Lokhande Pn bt Shagun Thukral Pn 6-1, 6-1; Vrushali Gawhankar Pn bt 2.Kalpita Raje Mum 6-2, 6-3; 4. Avanti Sulakhe Pn bt Sonali Sanap Mum 6-2, 6-3.

Kirtane enters semis

MADURAI: Sandeep Kirtane struggled to get past JagdishTanwar 6-4, 7-6 6-3 but managed to enter the last four stage of the Gold Flake Aces Tour tennis championship first leg.

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Southpaw Jagdish Tanwar almost gave a fright to doubles specialist Kirtane. The boy from Rajasthan began with a flourish to take a 3-2 lead but in the sixth game of the first set he fell heavily on his serving hand and failed to get his rhythm back. He lost the first set 6-4. Despite that he fought on gamely to take the second set into the tie-break where Kirtane prevailed.Coimbatore-based Ramanand had upset fifth seed S Zaman enroute to the quarter finals and he seemed to have the drop on Panja after he rallied from 2-4 to 5-5 all in the first set. But Panja broke him in the eleventh and served out the 12th game 7-5.

Results: Men8217;s singles all quarter-finals: Sandeep Kirtane bt Jagdish Tanwar 6-4, 7-6 6-3, S Panja Bramanand 7-5, 1-6, 6-2, V Kannan bt Sailesh Dhoble 6-4, 6-2, V Sridhar bt Manoj Mahadevan 7-6 6-1, 6-0.