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Seeds romp into last eight

Seeded players had things their way on the third day of the ITF men's Satellite Tennis Tournament in Bangalore today.

The top four seeds - Artem Derepasko, Prahlad Srinath, Syed Fazaluddin and Harsh Mankad - all went through to the next round in straight sets. The only seed to be taken to three sets was sixth-seeded Vinod Sridhar.

Top-seeded Derepasko of Russia, who won the second leg at Mumbai, found the going easy against compatriot Dimitri Mazur before winning 6-2, 6-2.

Mazur looked like making a fight of the contest, as he came back strongly in the second set and won the first two games. However, Derepasko showed his class, winning the next six games to take the match.

Srinath, winner of the first leg at Bangalore, won as easily, beating wild card Rohan Bopanna 6-4, 6-2 in just over an hour, as did third-seed Syed Fazaluddin and fourth seed Harsh Mankad. Fazaluddin got the better of Vijayendra Laad 6-2, 6-1, while Mankad breezed past compatriot Nitin Kirtane 6-0, 6-4.

After being at the receiving end throughout the first set, which he lost narrowly, Sridhar recovered splendidly to get the better of Anand Radhakrishnan 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-2 and join the other seeds in the last eight.

In other matches, qualifier Russian Andrei Youznyi applied the brakes to Mustafa Ghouse's ride in the tournament. The match, which was decided by a third set tie-breaker, had several exciting moments as both players battled it out for a quarter-final berth. In the end, it all boiled down to staying power, which deserted Ghouse as he went down 1-6, 6-3, 6-7(7).

Qualifier Minh Le of the United State and Uzbeki Anton Kokurin completed the quarter-final line-up. Le defeated Australian Steven Bourke 6-3, 7-6(3), while Kokurin won after his opponent, Vasudeva Reddy (Ind) conceded the match due to health problems. Reddy threw in the towel after he was a set down.

In the quarters tomorrow, Derepasko now meets Kokurin, while Srinath clashes with Le. Fazaluddin meets fellow Indian Sridhar and Mankad plays Youznyi.

Agencies