Manisha Malhotra in semis

Shailesh Soni

Indian lass Manisha Malhotra stormed into the semi-finals of the $25,000 Felixstowe Challenger being played in Great Britain.

The 24-year-old from Bombay defeated 241-ranked Elena Baltacha of Great Britain 6-3, 7-5 in the quarter-finals.

It was her first upset win over a top 250 player. It will also be her first Challenger semi-final appearance.

The win gives Manisha 14 WTA points to add to the 43.50 she has from her best 17 events. Her ranking will move up from 352 to around 315, ensuring direct entries into a lot of Challengers.

She now meets fifth seed Roberta Vinci of Italy in the semi-finals. Roberta is the defending champion, a very good grasscourt player who has not dropped a single set so far in this tournament.

Earlier, the unseeded Manisha defeated Marion Bartolli of France 6-7(5), 7-6(4), 7-6(4) in the second round to enter the quarter-final.

However, in doubles, Manisha and Lianne Baker bowed out in the first round, falling to top seeds Trudy Musgrave of Australia and Julie Pullin of Great Britain 4-6, 6-3, 3-6 in a hard-fought match.

In the men's circuit, Harsh Mankad, playing with Jonathan Beardsley of the United States, moved into the doubles quarter-final of the $50,000+H Granby Challenger being played in Canada.

The duo defeated wildcard Canadian pair of Michal Cizsak and Stephen Timu 7-6(5), 6-3 in the first round and will face the third seeded Amrican pair of Brandon Hawk and Robert Kendrick in the quarter-finals.

The win gives them 17 ATP points including three for qualifying. Harsh has now picked 29 doubles points from the last two events. The points come at a very good timing for Harsh, as he lost all of his 26 points this Monday and would have been off the ranking list. The points earned now will keep him at around 750 and will get him entry in all the Futures doubles draws.

In the juniors circuit, Karan Rastogi won the first round at the Grade-5 Carthago Cup in Tunisia.

Rastogi defeated Jonas Mouly of France, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 in the first round. He now faces the second seed Fares Zaier of Tunisia, who he had upset in straight sets last week.

Rishi Behl, 15, ranked 488, also pulled an upset win over Shunsuke Shimizu of Japan 6-2, 7-6(1). Rishi will now face unseeded Tarek Ben Sultani of Tunisia.

Earlier last week, Karan reached the semi-finals of the Grade-4 junior event in Tunisia. On his way to the semis Karan upset two top-200 players. It was pretty impressive for a 14-year-old in his first event outside the subcontinent.

Karan, who hails from Bombay, did very well in his first few ITF junior events in India early this year where he won couple of two rounds three times, losing only to those like Sunil Kumar, Rohan Gajjar and Nishank Mishra, but upsetting top-200 players like Rahul Rajkhewa and Adam Jaya of Malaysia.

Karan picked 30 points to double his points total and move to around 285 on the rankings. He is right now the highest ranked 14-year-old boy in the world.

Other juniors, Nishank and Shivang Mishra of Delhi lost in the first round of doubles, at the ITF junior Grade-1 German Open, being played at Essen, Germany.

The duo lost to the German pair of Sebastian Rieschick and Andreas Weber 1-6, 5-7 in the first round.

In the singles, Nishank lost in the first round to qualifier Artem Sitak of Russia 6-7(5), 6-7(4) whereas Shivang lost to Christopher Roman of Australia 6-3, 5-7, 3-6 in the first round.

On the men's circuit, at the USA F17c event in Peoria, Illinois, all the Indian players went out in the first round.

In the singles, Rishi Sridhar lost to unseeded Ruben de Klijn of The Netherlands 2-6, 0-6; Manoj Mahadevan lost to 5th seed Ignacio Gonzales-King of Argentina 3-6, 7-5, 1-6 and Mustafa Ghouse fell to Sebastien Fitz of Germany 4-6, 2-6.

In the doubles, third seeds Mustafa Ghouse and Adriano Biasella of Italy have reached the quarter-finals with a 6-1, 6-2 win over the American wildcards Matt Maris and Steven McRaven. Rishi Sridhar and Manoj Mahadevan, seeded 4th, went down 6-0, 3-6 6-7(5) to the Ignacio Gonzalez-King and Pablo Gonzales-King from Argentina.