CHENNAI, March 28: Maharashtra players Harsh Mankad and Gaurav Natekar fell by the wayside succumbing in the best of three decider sets respectively to Tamil Nadu's Vinodh Sridhar and Manoj Mahadevan, in the semi-finals of the Indian Oil Servo Singles Tennis Championship at the Krishnan Tennis Centre, here, today.In the first semi-final, Sridhar, who upset top seed Marcus Hilpert in the quarter-final yesterday, dropped the first set before outclassing Mankad 2-6 6-2 6-4 in 102 minutes, while in a marathon 145-minute battle, Natekar went down to Mahadevan 3-6 6-3 6-7 (3-7).Mankad's rhythmic strokeplay helped him take the first set, winning four games in a row from two-all. But Sridhar rallied splendidly to take the second and third sets in style.
