NEW DELHI, Dec 30: After the freezing winter showers, two Indians -- Prahlad Srinath and Vasudeva Reddy -- playing on adjacent courts, stepped in and unleashed the most delightful single handed on-the-rise backhands in the first round matches of the $ 10,000 ITF Men's future circuit Tennis tournament on the freshly scrubbed DTA courts on Tuesday.While World No 611 Srinath beat Russian qualifier Andrei Youznyi, National hard court champ Vasudeva Reddy, in a particularly charitable mood, won the match of his life and then lost it to second seed Lior Mor of Israel.
There was comic relief when Subhash Chandra Bose's tennis playing great grandson took to the courts in rainbow coloured clothes. But, the giggles stopped when German national Alex Bose started toying around with Vikrant Chadha in the fast-forward mode. Playing snappy double-fisted strokes on both flanks, Bose slowed down the pace and made Chadha do short sprints from the baseline to the net throughout the 6-3, 6-4 merry-go-round.
Gaurav Natekarwas the only other Indian to make it to the pre-quarters getting past the Spanish baseliner David Morente 7-5, 7-5. Down 3-4 in the second set Natekar's cool head saw him through in straight sets.
Results
Singles: First round: Vadim Kutsenko (Uzb) bt Iain Bates (GBR) 6-4, 6-4, Alex Bose (Ger) bt Vikrant Chadha (Ind) 6-3, 6-4, Prahlad Srinath (Ind) bt Andrei Youznyi (Rus) 6-4, 6-2, Andrew Rueb (US) bt Shailesh Dhoble (Ind) 6-2, 6-3, James Delcado (GBR) bt Vishal Uppal (Ind) 6-1, 6-1, Rainer Gunther (Ger) bt Pribylov Stanislov (Rus) 6-4, 6-0, Andrej Krasevec (Slo) bt Harsh Mankad (Ind) 6-4, 6-3, Marcus Hilpert (Ger) bt Ravikiran Bhat (Ind) 6-3, 6-2, Dmitri Tomasevich (Uzb) bt Gildas Villard (Fra) 6-0,6-3, Lior Kristal (Isr) bt Erhardt Patrik (Ger) 6-4, 6-1, Gaurav Natekar (Ind) bt David Morente (Esp) 7-5, 7-5, Jonathon Elrich (Isr) bt Kyle Rudman (RSA) 6-4, 7-6 (6), Naom Okun (Isr) bt Ali Hamadeh (Leb) 7-6(4), 6-4, Matej Pampoulov (Aut) bt Donovan September (RSA) 6-2, 7-6(5), Andrej Bizjak
(Slo) bt Robert Nita (Rom) 6-3, 6-2, Lior Mor (Isr) bt Vasudeva Reddy (Ind) 6-4, 7-5.
Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
