Top seed Aditya Madkekar of Mumbai will clash with second seed Nitin Kirtane of Pune in the finals of the Hero-Honda Pune Open National Ranking Tennis championship to be held at the Police Tennis courts in Pune on Saturday.
In the semi-finals played on Friday, Aditya Madkekar stopped the giant-killer and wild card local challenger Ketan Dhumal 6-3, 6-2, while southpaw Nitin Kirtane put paid to the aspirations of fourth seed Amod Wakalkar 7-5, 7-5, in a close encounter lasting 90 minutes.
Former Davis Cupper, Kirtane, an employee of Western Railways, had lost to the 22-year-old Madkekar of Central Railways at the Inter Railway championships last year.
The Kirtane-Wakalkar clash was marked by excellent rallies from both players.
Both the players held on to their services up to the 10th game (5-5) before Kirtane broke Wakalkar's serve in the 11th game in both the sets to win the clash.
Local youngster Dhumal, who had accounted for two seeded players Nikuj Siwach (Goa [Images]) and Yogesh Phogat (Gujarat), before entering the semi-finals, went down tamely to Madkekar.
In the doubles event, local challengers Gautam Samarth and Siddarth Patil entered their first national final accounting for veteran Jayant Kadhe and Sangram Chapekhar 6-4, 6-2.
Results:
Men's singles semi-finals: Aditya Madkekar (Mah) bt Ketan Dhumal (Mah) 6-3, 6-2; Nitin Kirtane (Mah) bt Amod Wakalkar (Mah) 7-5, 7-5.
Men's doubles semi-finals: Gautam Samarth and Siddarth Patil bt Jayant Kadhe and Sangram Chapekhar 6-4,6-2.
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