COIMBATORE, March 12: Fifth-seed Saurav Panja (WB) upstaged Sandeep Kirtane of Maharashtra in a gruelling semi-final encounter to set up a title clash with second seed Vinod Sridhar (TN) in the third and final leg of the Gold Flake Aces Tour tennis championship.Panja, who served 11 double faults, beat fourth seeded Kirtane 6-4, 6-5 to enter his first major final. In the other semi-final match, southpaw Sridhar blitzed Manoj Mahadevan 6-1, 6-3.With 34 points from the first two legs at Madurai and Chennai, Sridhar, who has made it to the final of the third leg, is tipped to bag the Chennai-London-Chennai free air ticket in terms of the number of points earned, subject to the approval of the tour committee.Calcutta-based Panja is in line for a double as he has also made it to the doubles finals with Sandeep Kirtane. The top seeded duo defeated Zaman-Mithun Murali pair 6-2, 6-3 in the semi-finals.Panja began poorly and was 0-3 down in the first set before he got his serve in working order. He held andbroke Kirtane in the fifth and seventh games, and thereafter did not look back. He served with precision in the 10th game to take it at love (6-4).The second set had a lot of drama as Panja was given a code violation by the chair umpire after he held play up play for a couple of minutes, protesting against a let on his serve in the fourth game, 40-30 up and 1-2 down. But saner counsel prevailed and Panja managed to hold on (2-2).Results: (semifinals): Singles: Saurav Panja bt S Kirtane 6-4, 7-5; Vinod Sridhar bt M Mahadevan 6-1, 6-3. Doubles: Sandeep Kirtane/S Panja bt Zaman/M Murali 6-2, 6-3; M Mahadevan/Avinash Arun bt S Dhoble/Jagdish Tanwar 3-1 (conceded).
