Natekar knocked out

CHENNAI, JAN 20: Davis Cupper and second seed Gaurav Natekar met his nemesis in unseeded Vijay Kannan, the junior national champion, in the pre-quarter finals but top seed Marcus Hilpert, Vasudev Reddy, Rohan Wadhera, Anand Radhakrishnan and Vinod Sridhar entered the quarter-finals of the men’s singles event in the Rs 2.5 lakh prize money South India Tennis Championship at the Gymkhana Courts.

Vijay Kannan pulled off the biggest upset over Gaurav Natekar in a two hours and 41 minute battle, winning 6-3,3-6,7-5 unleashing delectable passing shots from the baseline as Gaurav failed to concentrate despite putting up a brave fight.

In the women’s section however, top seed Arthi Ponnappa (Kar) defeated Deboshmita (Bengal) 6-1,6-0, second seed Sai Jayalakshmi beat Sadhiya Pathan (Kar) 6-4,6-0.

Results

Men’s: Marcus Hilpert (Ger) bt VN Prem Prakash (TN) 6-0,6-0; Vijay Kannan (TN) bt Gaurav Natekar 6-3,3-6,7-5 ; Vasudev Reddy (AP) bt Praveen Kumar (kar) 6-2,7-5; Rohan Wadhera(Mah)bt Vinay Karia (AP)6-0,6-3; Anand Radhakrishnan (WB) bt Rajkumar Gopalan 6-1,6-2 ; KG Ramesh (TN) bt Kamala Kannan (TN) 6-4,6-3; Rishi Sridhar (TN) lost to Meenakshi Sundaram (TN) 6-3,4-6,2-2; Vinod Sridhar (TN) bt R Manoj Kumar (TN) 6-2,6-2.