Tags:
Journalism of Courage
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Bangalore, June 6: It will be an all-Tamil Nadu affair for top honours in the women’s section of the National Games tennis championships.
On Friday at the KSLTA Stadium, fourth seeded Sai Jayalakshmi turned giant-killer by systematically dismantling the ambitions of second seed Arathi Ponnappa. In the final, she will take on teammate and top seed Rushmi Chakravarthy. Rushmi accounted for the other Karnataka player, Archana Venkatraman.
But the match that will be worth watching on the morrow would be the men’s singles final between two of the best players on view. Top seed Vasudev Reddy of Andhra Pradesh and fourth seed Prahalad Srinath of Karnataka ensured that form and quality would not be the casualties as they made short work of their opponents from Maharashtra.
The athletic Vasudev Reddy underscored his dominance over Nitin Kirtane with an emphatic 6-2, 6-4 win just 87 mminutes in the men’s semifinals.
The other semi between second seed Gaurav Natekar and Srinath, was a more keenly contested. Srinath’s backhand drives kept Natekar guessing as he cleverly mixed down the line and cross court shots.
To his credit, Natekar, after losing the first set in 47 minutes and serving at 2-4 down, looked like clawing back into the game when he held serve and then gave Srinath a torrid time in the eighth game. But Srinath finally won 6-4, 6-4 in 114 minutes.
