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Different strokes

The top two seeds in the third leg of the ITF men's Satellite Tennis tournament registered contrasting victories on the second day today to move into the pre-quarterfinal round.

While top seed Artem Derepasko, who won the second leg at Mumbai, scored a hard-fought victory over unseeded Sandeep Kirtane, second seed Prahlad Srinath, who won the first leg at Bangalore, won easily, beating Ashley Ford of Australia 6-3, 6-3 in a 75-minute encounter.

Kirtane lost the first set 4-6, but played excellent tennis thereafter to take the second set 6-4 and level the set score. However, the Russian, who has grown in confidence with each outing in India, came back strongly in the decider. He repeatedly caught Kirtane on the wrong foot as he played the waiting game, before clinching the set via the tie-breaker at 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(3) in around two hours and fifteen minutes.

Derepasko now meets another Russian, Mazur Dimitri, in the pre-quarter-finals. Mazur breezed past Indian qualifier SanzaruzZaman 6-4, 6-0.

For Srinath, it was a rather quick victory as he finished of his Australian rival in just 75 minutes. He runs into countryman Rohan Bopanna, a widcard entrant, in the pre-quarterfinals. Bopanna had defeated Shailesh Dhoble (Ind) yesterday.

Two more Indians, third seed Syed Fazaluddin and fourth seed Harsh Mankad, also made it to the last sixteen stage. Fazaluddin advanced at the expense of promising Indian, Vijay Kannan, winning 6-7(1), 7-5, 6-1, while Mankad easily accounted for Palivela Ravikrishna 6-2, 6-0 in just 58 minutes.

Others in the pre-quarter-finals are: Nitin Kirtane (Ind), who defeated another qualifier Kedar Shah (Ind) 7-5, 6-3; Vasudeva Reddy (Ind), who ousted wildcard entrant Kamala Kannan (Ind) 6-3, 6-4; and qualifier Vijayendra Laad (Ind), who beat Vishal Uppal (Ind) 7-5, 4-6, 6-2.

Agencies