Injury dashes Gajjar's hopes

Indian junior Rohan Gajjar's hopes of a grand double at the ITF Malaysia International Junior tennis championship were dashed when he retired with an injury during the singles final on Sunday.

The Indian, seeded second in the tournament, lost to top seeded Dias Doskarayev of Kazakstan 5-7, 0-2(retd).

Rohan lost the first set 5-7 in a stiffly-fought battle. He was down 2-5 when the medical official was called in to give him treatment after he complained of a shoulder pain.

After treatment, Gajjar braved the pain to snatch some points from Doskarayev to level the score at 5-5, but lost the set.

Trailing 0-2 in the second set, Gajjar conceded the match as he was not able to serve properly due to pain in his shoulder.

Earlier, Rohan had defeated fourth seed Roman Kutac of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-2 in the semi-finals.

The Indian was in the doubles final also, partnering D G Jones of New Zealand. The duo were seeded second in the tournament, but the injury to the Indian forced the pair to concede a walkover to the eight seeded pair of Do Minh Quan of Vietnam and Shieh Yu Da of Chinese Taipei.

Rohan will keep the 60 points for the junior world rankings for playing the singles final and might skip the Brunei circuit next week to nurse his injury.

The other Indians in the fray could not get past second round. Sixth seed Saurabh Singh lost to Seung Jae Lee of Korea 6-7(3), 3-6; Amit Karunakaran lost to fourth seed Roman Kutac of the Czech Republic 3-6, 2-6; Akash Sharma lost to the 12th seed Marco Beeler of Switzerkand 0-6, 2-6 and Nihal Advani lost to the 15th seed Ivan Kovalev of Kazakastan 6-7(5), 1-6.

In the men's doubles, seventh seed Rishi Behl and Akash Sharma lost in the quarter-finals to top seeds Artour Djabarov of Russia and Dias Doskarayev of Kazakastan, while Nihal Advani and Amrit Karunakaran went down in the second round.

In the girls' section, top seed Megha Vakharia crashed out in quarter-finals, losing to Maya Stefanie Rosa of Indonesia 3-6, 5-7. Krushmi Chheda lost to eight seed Tanja Markovic of the New Zealand 3-6, 3-6 in the second round while Nansi Jharna and Nidhi Shah both lost in the first round.

In girls' doubles, Nansi Jharna and Nidhi Shah lost to second seed Indonesian pair of Maya Stefanie Rosa and Diana Julianto 3-6, 0-6, while Megha Vakharia and Petra Teller of Hungry lost to third seed Serena Bergomi and Tina Schmassmann of Switzerland 4-6, 3-6 in the quarter-finals.