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Journalism of Courage
Mumbai, November 24: John Doran continued his giant-killing act, when he stunned second seed and tournament favourite Viktor Bruthans of Slovakia 6-3, 6-3 in the semi-final of the $10,000 ITF Futures tennis tournament being played at the Dr GA Ranade tennis centre here on Friday.
With this win, Doran set up a final clash with top seed Juraj Hasko of Slovakia, who got through after his opponent fifth seed Branislav Sekac conceded in the third set 6-7, 6-4, 2-0 complaining of fatigue in a match that lasted for nearly two hours.
Doran raced through to a 4-1 lead in the first set, but Bruthans came back well to win the next two games, but the Irish qualifier did not allow the second seed any more chances to take the first set at 6-3.
Bruthans weak first serve all but put paid to all his hopes, but he was not to be undone by that. In the second set, he began with a bang breaking Doran twice but at 3-0 when he was up 40-15, Doran got a lucky break and won the game. Thereafter it was all Doran as he won the next five games and shut Bruthans out of the match. This win was the second for Doran over Bruthans, who had earlier beaten the Slovak last week in the Chandigarh leg of the ITF tournament 6-1 6-2.
Viktor Bruthans, who had high hopes of making it a double after winning the doubles earlier in the day felt that it was his serve which did him in. “After he broke me in the second set, I lost control and got frustrated also I was all over the place with my serve, I need to serve better than this”, he said.
While Doran felt it was his hunger for success that took him to the final. “I said to myself that I am not going to give up, stayed still and that did the trick for me. I also think Viktor (Bruthans) is good at returning serves, but he has a weak serve so he could not hold serve as well as me." The second semi-final of the day saw Hasko taking on compatriot Sekac in a match that was tipped to go down the wire. Sekac began well and took the first set in the tie-break. In the second set, however, Hasko outplayed Sekac and took the set at 6-4, all this made for a thrilling third and final set. But that was not to be. After losing the first two games, Sekac complained of fatigue and after a chat with the ITF supervisor conceded match with the third set score reading 2-0.
Sekac later went on to complain about the tough schedule for he was playing the second match of the day after the doubles final.
“It was tough, after the first set tie-break I could not stretch myself, I felt pain in my legs and that was it, (I) decided this cannot go on.” However both the losing semi-finalists had something to cheer about as the took home the doubles title. In the final the top-seeded combination of Sekac and Bruthans beat the Indo-Irish duo of Kedar Shah and John Doran 6-4, 7-5. The match went along the expected lines as the wild card entrants –Doran and Shah — could not repeat the exploits of previous matches. The win gave Sekac-Bruthans combination 12 ITF points, while the runners up settledfor eight points.
Results (all SF): Singles: John Doran (Ire) bt Viktor Bruthans (Svk) 6-3, 6-3; Juraj Hasko (Svk) bt Branislav Hasko (Svk) 6-7 (7-2), 6-4, 2-0 (retd).
Doubles (final): Viktor Bruthans (Svk)/ Branislav Sekac (Svk) bt John Doran (Ire)/ Kedar Shah (Ind) 6-4, 7-5.
