Xavier, Kannan to fight it out

Tulpule meets Kanury

Combining her solid groundstrokes with a calm and unhurried approach, second seed Radhika Tulpule entered her second consecutive girls final. The Pune girl humbled American qualifier Khushchehr Italia 6-3, 6-0. Much was expected of Italia, who shocked a few seeds in the tournament, but she came a cropper against a smarter andsteady player.

For her part, Italia’s go-for-broke style and her inability to keep the ball longer proved her downfall. Except for her serve, there was nothing worthwhile to write home about. “It was not an easy match as reflected by the scores,” said Tulpule.

Earlier, in the morning, Tulpule combining with Radhika Mandke steamrolled Sandhya Kanury and Samrita Sekar 6-2, 6-1 in the doubles final.

In the other semifinals, seventh seed Sandhya Kanury (TN) made up for her disappointing doubles final by coming back from 1-4 (two breaks down) against Harsimran Kaur in the first set, reeling off six games in-a-row which demoralised the Chandigarh girl totally. She offered only a token resistance in the second set. Kanury prevailed 6-4, 6-3 to enter her first National final.

Kamala Kannan, first year B.Com student from Loyola College, Chennai, has shown the ability to bounce back from unfavourable situations in this tournament. His 3-1 record against Benjamin Xavier, should give him the edge in tomorrow’sfinal. With both of them yet to win a National crown, it can be a breakthrough event for either of them.

Kannan could not do anything right in the first set. Mukundan’s strategy of not giving any pace worked wonders as he ran away with the first set with two breaks.

Instead of driving home the advantage, Mukundan woke his opponent from his slumber with his lackadaisical approach in the second set. After getting the break in the fifth game, Kannan’s game got better while Mukundan’s game took a dip. Kannan staved off few break points at 5-3 to take the match into the decider.

The KTC trainee broke Mukundan at 3-2, who had no more ammunition in his tank and lost the match tamely with two double-faults. Kannan hurt himself a bit slipping on the slow clay.

Xavier, who is doing his 10th at St. Xavier’s, Vashi capitalised on Tembe’s innocuous approach and broke him in the ninth game to take the first set. The top seed has been struggling throughout the event and his eight foot-faults added to his woes.

Ifthat wasn’t enough, Xavier raised his game a notch and passed him most of the times with Tembe charging to the net. There were a few line calls which seemed to bug the players. But Tembe put it candidly, saying “It’s part of the game. The line calls didn’t affect me.”

Ravi Kiran Bhat and Nirmit Shetty of Karnataka took the boys doubles title, defeating Kedar Shah (Maharashtra) and Sunil Kumar (Chandigarh) 7-5, 7-5.

Results: Semifinals: Boys: V Kamala Kannan (TN) bt 6-Mukundan 1-6, 6-3, 6-2; Benjamin Xavier (Maharashtra) bt 1-Kedar Tembe (Maharashtra) 6-4, 6-3.

Girls: SF: 2-Radhika Tulpule (Maharashtra) bt Italia Khushchehr (US) 6-3, 6-0, 7-Sandhya Kanury (TN) bt Harsimran Kaur (Chandigarh) 6-4, 6-3.

Doubles: Finals: Girls: 1-Radhika Mandke/Radhika Tulpule (Maharashtra) bt 4-Sandhya Kanury/Samrita Sekar 6-2, 6-1.

Boys: the file %s(%s)3-Ravi Kiran Bhat/Nirmit Shetty (Karnataka) bt 2-Kedar Shah (Maharashtra)/Sunil Kumar (Chandigarh) 7-5, 7-5.