Indian challenge ends; three Slovakians in last four

Our Correspondent

India's challenge in the men's singles in ITF Futures tennis tournament came to an end on Thursday with the exit of Manoj Mahadevan in the quarter-finals.

The wild card giant-killer, who had shocked third seed Michael Mertinak of Slovakia 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 in the pre-quarter-finals on Wednesday, failed to reproduce the same form against Ireland's John Doran, another qualifier, and went down 6-7 (5-7), 3-6 after 100 minutes of play.

What started off as an engrossing contest, in the end, fizzled out into a tame affair as the Indian did not have the stamina to keep pace with the Irishman's power game.

Both players held serve for the first six games of the first set till Doran broke in the seventh. However, after the Irishman held and looked set to take the set while serving at 5-4, Mahadevan capitalised on some wayward play and poor serving by his rival to break back. The players then held to take the set into the tie-breaker, where Doran's ability to get his first serve right as also capitalise on Mahadevan's unforced errors won him the tie-breaker at 7-5 and the set.

The second set promised much after the close contest of the first. But Mahadevan just failed to live up to expectations. His service deserted him; added to that he looked weary, the rigours of the last few days obviously showing up. Doran won the set easily at 6-3 to seal his place in the semi-finals.

The others to make it to the semi-finals were the Slovakian trio of top seed Juraj Hasko, fifth seed Branislav Sekac and second seed Viktor Bruthans.

Hasko proved too good for his unseeded countryman Tomas Janci, winning 6-1, 6-0, while Sekac prevailed over fourth seeded Miloslav Grolmus 6-2, 1-0 (retired), and Bruthans beat Mauritius-based seventh seed Kamil Patel 6-2, 6-4.

Hasko will take on Sekac in the first semi-final on Friday while Doran will meet Bruthans in the second.

The men's doubles final will be contested between the Slovakian pair of Viktor Bruthans/Branislav Sekac and the Irish-Indian pair of John Doran/Kedar Shah.

Bruthans and Sekac defeated Tomas Janci and Michal Mertinak 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (3) while Doran-Shah beat Ben Gudzelak and Onathan Marray 7-6 (3) 6-4 in the semi-finals on Thursday.

Results:

Men's singles (quarter-final): Juraj Hasko (Slovakia) bt Tomas Janci (Slovakia) 6-1, 6-0; Branislav Sekac (Slovakia) bt Miloslav Grolmus (Slovakia) 6-2, 1-0; John Doran (Ireland) bt Manoj Mahadevan (India) 7-6 (5), 6-3; Viktor Bruthans (Slovakia) bt Kamil Patel (Mauritius) 6-2 6-4.

Men's doubles (semi-finals): Viktor Bruthans/Branislav Sekac (Slovakia) bt Tomas Janci/Michal Mertinak (Slovakia) 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (3); John Doran (Ireland)/Kedar Shah (India) bt Ben Gudzelak/Jonathan Marray (Great Britain) 7-6 (3), 6-4.