Vajda shocks Marach

Our Correspondent

Ivan Vajda of Croatia put an end to the winning streak of Oliver Marach. The sixth seed dashed the Austrian's hopes of a clean sweep in the ITF Satellite circuit by beating him in the semi-finals of the Masters tournament, in Bombay, on Thursday.

In a surprising reversal of fortunes, Vajda, who had lost to Marach in the final of the second leg at Nagpur, won 6-3, 6-4 to enter the final, where he meets Pakistan's Aisam Qureshi, who accounted for Arten Derepasko 6-3, 6-1 in the other semi-final.

Marach, who had won the three legs of the Satellite tournament, at Bombay, Nagpur and Pune earlier, was on the threshold of history -- of becoming the first player to win all the three Satellite legs plus the Masters in India. However, the law of averages caught up with him as the Croat, who had lost to Marach in the Nagpur final after winning the first set, threw caution to the wind and turned in a superb display. He piled on the pressure from the start and never let up as he broke once in each set -- in the fourth game of the first and fifth of the second -- to take the match comfortably.

Earlier in the day, the big-serving Qureshi, who lost to Marach in the final of the third leg at Pune last week, came up with a fine allround display to shock the second seeded Derepasko.

The Pakistani raced away to a 4-0 lead in the first set after breaking Derepasko in the second and fourth games. The Russian managed to pull one game back as he reduced the lead to 1-4 after breaking in the fifth. But that was all, as Vajda took the set at 6-3.

The second set was totally one-sided as the scoreline indicates. Qureshi, who served 13 aces in the match, broke in the first, fifth and seventh games as Derepasko managed to win just one game -- the third -- off his own serve .