Abhinansu, Sagar move into pre-quarterfinals

Kolkata: Qualifiers Abhinansu Borthakur and Sagar Manjanna advanced into the pre-quarterfinals of the National Grass Court Tennis Championship at the South Club here today.

Assam lad Borthakur, who is training in Kolkata for the last three years, ousted India No 23 Rohan Gide in a marathon battle of three hours and five minutes. In the opening set, Borthakur trailed 1-5, from where he came back and made it 4-5, but could not break Gide any further as he eventually dropped the set 4-6.

In the second, it was a neck-to-neck encounter as it went on to a tie-breaker, where Borthakur overcame the strong Gide by an 8-6 win to take the match to the decider. Borthakur was double match point down at 5-6 on serve trailing 15-40 as he showed nerves of steel to pull four straight points to take the contest into the tie-breaker as he won 11-9.

Sagar Manjanna from Karnataka, a qualifier, had a tough time against higher ranked Shabaaz Khan, as the former won by a close 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. Local lad Rupesh Roy took two hours and 40 minutes to show Ronak Manuja the door in the first round.

Results: Men's Singles: Vijay Sundar Prashant (TN) (1) bt Sidharth Rawat (UP) 7-6(5), 6-4; T. Elvin Anthony (TN) bt Vijay Kanan (TN) 4-6, 7-6(7), 7-5; Tejas Chaukulkar (MAH) bt Md Azar (WB) 6-0, 6-0; Suraj R Prabodh (KAR) bt Anvit Bendre (MAH) 6-3, 6-3; Kunal Anand (DLI) (5) bt Manoj Sewa 7-5, 3-6, 6-4; Saurav Sukul (7) bt Rohit Sarwate (AP) 4-6, 6-1, 6-3; Rupesh Roy bt Ronak Manuja (MAH) 7-6(4), 6-7(2), 6-2; Abhinansu Borthakur (ASM) bt Rohan Gide (MAH) 4-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(9); Chandril Sood (UP)(4) bt Ajay Selvaraj (TN) 3-6, 6-4, 6-3; Nitten Kirrtane (MAH)(6) bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma (AP) 6-1, 6-4; Sagar Manjanna (KAR) bt Shabaaz Khan (MAH) 5-7, 6-4, 6-4; Sasikumar Mukund (TN) bt Rishabh Rama (AP) 6-2, 6-4; Jayaprakash Mohit Mayur (TN)(2) bt Vinod Shridhar (TN) 6-4, 6-2. Women’s Singles: Shweta C Rana (DLI)(1) bt Arantxa Andrady (DLI) 6-4, 6-4; Amrita Mukherjee bt Aaryali Chavan (MAH) 6-0, 6-1; Rushmi Chakravarthi (TN)(7) bt Saumya Vig (GUJ) 6-1, 6-0; Bhuvana Kalva (AP)(5) bt Damini Sharma (UP) 2-2,retd.