Seeds have a bad day

MUMBAI, May 6: Four men's and one women's seeds tumbled out in the second round of the Sterling Resorts Mumbai Hard Court Tennis Tournament...

MUMBAI, May 6: Four men’s and one women’s seeds tumbled out in the second round of the Sterling Resorts Mumbai Hard Court Tennis Tournament at the Shivaji Park Gymkhana today.

Intikhab Ali, the third seed here, continued his bad run when he lost to wild card recipient Vijendra Laad in straight sets 6-4, 7-6 (7-2). Ali had lost in the quarters of last week’s Maharashtra State Hard Court Championship.

In another second-round match, BAT trainee Chandraveer Singh of Rajasthan got past eighth seed R Balaji of Tamil Nadu 6-3, 7-6 (7-5). Singh, who had given up playing tennis, is making a comeback this season.

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Fourth seed Shailesh Dhoble of Nagpur was shocked by unseeded Amod Wakalkar. Dhoble lost the longest match of the day after Wakalkar came back strongly in the final set to win 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. VN Premprakash of Tamil Nadu disposed off sixth seed DR Jayadeva (Karnataka) 6-1, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5).

The women’s quarter-final line-up was more on expected lines. However, eighth seed Jutika Choksi was beaten 6-2, 6-1 by the promising local player Mable Abraham. All the other seven seeds made the last eight.

The elimination of the four men’s seeds today and second seed KV Ganesh (Tamil Nadu) yesterday in the first round left only fifth seed CV Anand (Tamil Nadu) and seventh seed Jagdish Tanwar (Raj) in the last eight.

Top seed Gaurav Natekar, who had a day off yesterday, is expected to join them tomorrow. He fought off a determined first-round challenge from Gujarat’s Umang Chadda with a 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 win today.

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Chadda had made the quarter-finals of last week’s tournament after upsetting second seed Asif Ismail in the first round.

QUARTER-FINAL LINE-UP

Men’s: Gaurav Natekar/Jay Patel vs Chandraveer Singh; Vijendra Laad vs CV Anand; VN Premprakash vs Amod Wakalkar; Jagdish Tanwar vs Rajesh Vohra Women’s: Rushmi Chakravarthy vs Joy Rodrigues ; Archana Venkatraman vs Arati Venkatraman ; Aparna Srinivasan vs K Janaki ; Mable Abraham vs Arati Ponnappa. RAVI SHANKAR NETS WINNER: J Ravi Shankar scored the lone goal in Indian Airlines’ 1-0 win over IPCL in the pre-quarter-finals of the BHA-conducted Bhiwandiwala Cup Hockey tournament at the Naigaum Police ground here today.

In another match, Khalsa `C’ defeated Central Railway Workshop (Matunga) 2-1 with goals coming from Gurmeet Pal Singh and Manish Sen for the winners while Rodney Pereira reduced the margin for the losers.

RESULTS-Seedings in prefix

Men’s singles (2nd round): Chandraveer Singh (Raj) bt 8-R Balaji (TN) 6-3, 7-6 (7-5); Vijendra Laad (Mah) bt 3-Intikhab Ali (Mah) 6-4, 7-6 (7-2); VN Premprakash (TN) bt 6-DR Jayadeva (Kar) 6-1, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5), 5-CV Anand (TN) bt Mustafa Ghouse (Mah) 6-2, 6-0, Amod Wakalkar (Mah) bt 4-Shailesh Dhoble 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, Rajesh Vohra (Pun) bt SK Shivshankar (Kar) 7-5, 6-2, 7-Jagdish Tanwar (Raj) bt Y Sandeep (AP) 6-3, 7-5

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1st round: 1-Gaurav Natekar (Mah) bt Umang Chadda (Guj) 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 Women’s singles (2nd round): 1-Rushmi Chakravarthy (TN) bt K Subhasini (TN) 6-2, 6-1, 7-Joy Rodrigues (Mah) bt Hrushida Kamthe (Mah) 7-6 (8-6), 6-0, 3-Archana Venkatraman (Kar) bt Shaila Naidu (Mah) 6-0, 6-0, 5-Arthi Venkatraman (Kar) bt Kuntal Joshi (Mah) 6-1, 6-1, 6-Aparna Srinivasan (Mah) bt Stutti Smith (Mah) 6-1, 6-1, 4-K Janaki (Mah) bt Priya Wal (TN) 6-0, 6-2, Mable Abraham (TN) bt 8-Jutika Choksi (Mah) 6-2, 6-1, 2-Arati Ponnappa (Kar) bt Sai Rajalakshmi (TN) 6-0, 6-0.