Harsh Mankad rallies to make semis

India Davis Cupper Harsh Mankad staged a brilliant recovery to get the better of Peter Handoyo of Indonesia to enter the semi-finals of the $10,000 Canada F1 Satellite tennis tournament on Friday.

The Indian won the quarter-final match 6-7(6), 6-4, 7-5.

Handoyo had upset second seed Benjamin Cassaign in the second round.

Harsh's performance is quite impressive as it is his first pro event after almost a year. It is very rare to see an Indian other than Paes or Bhupathi getting past the first or second round west of India. Syed Fazaluddin had reached one or two quarter-finals in the Canadian Futures, and Pralhad Srinath had a semi-final appearance in a Futures event in Greece.

In the process, Harsh picked four ATP points and now faces seventh seed Mario Ancic of Crotia.

Ancic, 17, is tall, ranked 571 on ATP, is already in the Croatian Davis Cup team and has a doubles win too (he was also in the Olympics team for Crotia along with Goran Ivanesevic). A finalist at the Australian Open and Wimbledon juniors last year, he is ranked 11th in the world in the ITF juniors' ranking.

Ancic upset fourth seed Tasuku Iwami of Japan 3-6, 5-4 ret.

Vikrant Chadha, playing with James Shortall of New Zealand, lost to the American pair of Steve Berke and Kyle Porter in the semi-final 6-7(6), 3-6.

Meanwhile, Vijay Kannan lost in the first round of the doubles Leg 1 of the Radobank Dutch Clay Satellite being played at Raalte, The Netherlands.

Kannan, playing with Steven Bijl of The Netherlands, lost to the third seeded Dutch pair of Paul Logtens and Maarten Paas 6-4, 3-6.

In the women's Challenger circuit, Manisha Malhotra continued her good run in France. Malhotra, playing with and Leanne Baker of New Zealand, reached the doubles final on Friday at the $50,000 Challenger in Marseille, France.

Manisha and Leannes easily upset the 4th seeds Maria Elena Camerin of Italy and Antoaneta Pandjerova of Bulgeria 6-2, 6-4.

The win gives the Indo-Kiwi pair 10 more WTA points that would take their total to 28 (including 2 bonus for upsetting the top seeds on Thursday and one for Friday's upset).

Their opponents in the final, probably on Sunday, are yet to be determined.

Earlier report:
Good going for Indians on international circuit