Wildcard Gomes upsets fourth seed Beniwal

For a while the seedings didn't matter, not the pre-match predictions of who would move ahead. If Suraj Beniwal was the fourth seed and a gulf separated him from Allen Gomes, the wild card entrant, then the end result showed the gulf was never there. On Wednesday, Gomes caused a major upset when he disposed of the Haryana lad 7-6(1), 6-2, to enter the semi-finals of the Rs 1 lakh Prize Money CLTA-AITA Chandigarh Open tennis tournament at the Sector 10 Tennis Stadium.

With a slight chill in the air, both the players took their positions on the court. Gomes, who looked rusty initially, started to come into his own and unleashed a flurry of powerful groundstrokes that proved too much for Beniwal to counter. Continuing in the same fashion, Gomes asserted his supremacy even when the chips were down and Beniwal threatened to snatch the game away from him. But Gomes had sniffed victory and he didn't want to let go off this chance. In the tie-breaker, Gomes raked up some points, put Beniwal under pressure and raced away with the set. He had won half the battle but there was still more to fight for.

Sadly, Beniwal couldn't make a comeback. He played like the second best player on the court and easily gave up the race for the semi-finals by losing the second set 2-6 to the wildcard entrant.

However, Sunil Kumar Sipaeya, a former CHART trainee, continued to dominate on the court for the third day running. He easily defeated Rohit Sarwate of Andhra Pradesh 6-0, 6-3, to enter the last four. After easily winning the first set 6-0, Sunil continued to press hard and the AITA 21 ranked player faced no problem in beating the 92 ranked Sarwate 6-3 in the second set in their quarter-final match.

... contd.

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