Sridhar shocks Kannan

Tamil Nadu's Rishi Sridhar knocked out top seed Vijay Kannan from the DSCL Open National tennis championship on Thursday, even as defending champions Sunil Kumar and Sai Jayalakshmi entered the last four in the men's and women's singles respectively.

Eighth-seeded Rishi, who survived a scare in the first round against Rohan Gajjar, played some excellent tennis as he outclassed Kannan 6-1, 6-3 in just over an hour. He meets Nitin Kirtane in the semis.

Sixth seeded Sunil Kumar moved past third seed Vishal Uppal of Delhi 6-2, 7-6 (3) while Jayalakshmi overwhelmed Shalini Thakur 5-3, 4-1, 4-0.

Sunil, who has not lost a set thus far, clashes with Tamil Nadu's Vinod Sridhar, the second seed, in the semi-finals. Sridhar trounced seventh seed Saurav Panja (West Bengal) 6-2, 6-3.

In the women's singles, Jayalakshmi will take on Chandigarh girl Shruti Dhawan.

Shruti, who has picked up well after a break from tennis due to an injury, seems to be in top form. The unseeded girl, who on Wednesday scored a memorable victory after losing the first two sets, had a comparatively easy passage against fourth-seeded Sonal Phadke on Thursday.

After both the players won a set each in a tie-break with an identical score of 5-4(5), Shruti played solid tennis to overpower her opponent and clinch the next two sets 4-1, 4-0.

Last year's runner-up Rushmi Chakravarthi will clash with seventh seed Radhika Tulpule. While Tulpule had no difficulty in overpowering Liza Pereira of Maharashtra 4-0, 4-2, 4-2, Rushmi was stretched to five sets by Megha Vakharia of Maharashtra.

In the boys' under-18 section, unseeded Rohan Gajjar upset top seed Shivang Mishra, winning in straight sets. Gajjar, who had lost in the first round in the men's section, seems to be going well in the juniors. Playing confidently against the top seed, he won 6-4, 7-5. He meets Tamil Nadu's Kamala Kannan. Fourth seed Kannan got the better of Maharashtra's Benjamin Xavier 6-2, 7-5.

Other players in the last four are second seed Parantap Chaturvedi (Dli) and Nandakumar Mukundan. While Parantap breezed past Karnataka's Tejeshwar Chigateri 6-1, 6-2, Mukundan continued his remarkable run by shocking third-seeded Ravikrishna Palivela (AP) 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-4.

Mukundan, who entered the tournament as a lucky loser, had on Wednesday shocked fifth seed Amanjot Singh in round two.

UNI