Three Indians in last eight

Prahlad Srinath overcame a stiff challenge from Ti Chen of China before prevailing 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 and moving into the quarter-finals of the $10,000 ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the DLTA courts in Delhi on Wednesday.

He was joined by wild card Vishal Uppal, who continued his good showing, beating David Sherwood of England 7-6(7/5), 7-5, and Rohan Bopanna, who shut out another Chinese, Yu-Jr Wang, 6-3, 6-2.

However, two other Indians landed up on the losing side. Nitin Kirtane went down to Ben-Qiang Zhu of China 3-6, 2-6 and Manoj Mahadevan lost to fifth seed Dmitri Mazur of Uzbekistan 7-5, 7-5.

The match between Srinath and Chen was a battle between two hard-hitting baseliners, but the Indian's confidence in approaching the net when needed made the difference.

After conceding the first set, Chen fought his way back into the match when he broke Srinath's serve in the second game in the next set. Varying his pace to upset Srinath's forehand, he held on to the lead and took the set.

The third set saw guns boom with more intensity. In the eighth game, two forehands by Chen that sailed long provided an opening for Srinath and the eighth seed seized the chance with a backhand cross-court winner to gain the break.

Uppal's fine victory over Sherwood was marred by the latter's unsportsmanlike behaviour on court. After conceding the first set over the tie-breaker, the Briton objected to the chair umpire allowing the Indian a reserve when a non-playing ball rolled onto the court. Sherwood, who was penalised for similar behaviour last week in Chennai, spat in the direction of the ITF supervisor and was slapped with a code violation for abusing the chair umpire and fined $75.

Earlier reports
Vishal Uppal shocks third seed Mark Hilton
Sridhar, Sipaeya lose in first round