Karan Rastogi loses in final

Indian junior Karan Rastogi went down in the singles final of the 17th Damascus International junior tournament, a grade 5 event, in Damascus, Syria.

The Bombay-based lad lost to the second-seed Anuwat Dalodom of Thailand 4-6, 1-6.

Karan had beaten Fadi-Zyad Zamjaoui of Morocco 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in his semi-final match. In the quarter-finals, he defeated Yassir Bouyahya of Morocco 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, while in the third round he beat Andras Kuharszky of Hungary 6-1, 7-5.

Another Indian, Rishi Behl lost to Mustepha Reda Djellal of Algeria 4-6, 4-6 in his third round match.

Rastogi and Behl had lost in the singles quarter-finals at the fifth Arab International junior tournament last week.

It was a bad day for Rastogi, as he and Rishi Behl lost in the doubles semi-finals, to the Anuwat Dalodom of Thailand and Fahd Al Saad of Saudi Arabia 3-6, 5-7.

The duo had beaten Yassif Bouyahya of Morocco and Amit Karunakaran of India 6-1, 6-0 in the quarterfinals and the Syrian pair of Mohammad Bawadekje and Abraham Ibrahim 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 in the second round.

Karunakakran and Bouyahya had defeated the Algerian pair of Mustepha Reda Djellal Abbaz Zead in the second round.

Another Indian pair of Rewant Datta and Navdeep Singh lost in their second round match to the top seeds Mohamed Al Kawary of Qatar and Mohammed Al Nabhani of Oman 0-6, 4-6.

Rastogi and Behl had lost in the doubles final at the fifth Arab International junior tournament, played in Syria, last week.

Karan earned 20 points from this tournament, which adds to 105 total points from his best-6 results, which will raise his ranking by another 16 spots from the current 218, to the 202. He is currently the youngest 14-year-old, and only a 13-year-old German at 200 is younger than him in the ITF top-250.

Karan had earlier made two semi-finals (Grade 3 and Grade 5 tournaments in Tunis, in July), a quarter-final (5th Arab international junior tournament in Syria, last week ) and two pre-quarter-finals (Grade 3 tournament in Egypt and Grade 4 tournament in Delhi) in the under-18 circuit.