CHANDIGARH, February 10: Two seeded players in the girls' singles were given a tough fight by their rivals before moving into the quarter-finals of the ITF Junior Tennis Circuit at the Chandigarh Club grasscourts here today.Eighth seed Radhika Mandke of India was engaged in a marathon duel with Austria's Sohm Marion on court No 9 while on the adjacent court, 12-year-old Pichaya Laosirichon of Thailand gave a harrowing time to second seed Velts Alisa of Kazakhstan before making her exit. But with grace.
Left-handed Radhika Mandke was at certain disadvantage because of her height but she overcame the deficiency with her varied strokes. Shom Marion excelled with her ground strokes and volleys. Radhika lost the first set 3-6 but bounced back with vengeance and grabbed the second set to be tied one-all. The third set was extended to the tie-breaker and the Indian won the decider and the match 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9-7) to avert a possible upset.
Results: Boys' singles (Ist round): Sanzaruz Zaman (Ind) btSangram Chapekar (Ind) 6-4, 6-2; Koifman Eduard (Kyr) bt Saurabh Singh (Ind) 6-2, 6-3; Ravi Kiran Bhat (Ind) bt Kamla Kannan (Ind) 6-3, 7-5; Parantap Chautervedi (Ind) bt Gurmehar Singh (Ind) 6-2, 6-1; Vijay Kannan (Ind) bt Chandershekhar Mohanty (Ind) 6-0, 6-1; Rohan Bopna (Ind) bt Abhijit Mazumdar (Ind) 6-0, 7-5; Kedar Tembe (Ind) bt Sarbrinder Singh (Ind) 6-3, 6-1; Akshay Vishal Rao (Ind) bt Dipesh Rao (Ind) 6-2, 6-3.
Girls' singles (1st round): Uzma Khan (Ind) bt Jahnavi Parekh (Ind) 6-2, 6-0; Radhika Tulpule (Ind) bt Trishna Williams (Ind) 6-1, 6-3; Sheetal Gautam (Ind) bt Sangeeta Rajgopalan (Ind) 6-0, 6-0; Merus Burger Yvonne (Aut) bt Dinali de Silva (Sri Lanka) 6-0, 6-1; Simma Maria (Aut) bt Thiagrajan Sricharanaya (Ind) 6-2, 6-0; Shruti Dhawan (Ind) bt Geeta Manohar (Ind) 6-0, 6-1; Radhika Mandke (Ind) bt Sohm Marion (Aut) 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9-7); Velts Alisa (Kaz) bt Pichaya Larosirichon (Thai) 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
