NEW DELHI, April 24: Exactly one week after he buckled under the early morning heat and an inspired southpaw's near perfect strokemaking, Parantap Chaturvedi avenged that loss outslugging Sunil Kumar for the boys under-16 title in the adidas junior circuit second leg at the DTA courts here today.Helped considerably by the scheduling of his two finals - he played the under-16 first - Parantap was fresh and ready for a long day ahead.Slowing down the pace and playing a waiting game he managed to tie up Sunil at 4-all in the first set before going down 4-5.
Sunil, struggling to hold his serve today, let go the lead and allowed Parantap to take the set into the tie break. Once that happened, the match took on a rather predictable tone with Sunil in no mood to wait at the baseline and Parantap unwilling to give free points. The small but vociferous DHAITA cheerleading team on the sidelines only added to Sunil's general discomfort.
Later, Parantap came back to the scorhing deco turf court to take out DHAITA colleague Nikhil Murli in straight sets for the under-14 title. Nikhil, quite contrary to what the scoreline suggests, stroked uninhibitedly and played a good match. Despite matching Parantap on every rally, he didn't quite know when to close out the point while Parantap cashed in.
On Thursday, Shruti Dhawan took home the girls-16 title while Sanaa Bhambri won the under-14 crown.
Team for World Youth Cup
Three promising juniors, Akshay Vishal Rao, Kamala Kannan and Karan Doctor have been selected to play the World Youth Cup ( under-16) at Hiroshima, Japan from April 26- May 4. The team is scheduled to leave Delhi on Saturday night.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
