Kolkata: Defending champion Rushmi
Chakravarthi and second seed Shivika Burman registered
contrasting wins to reach the semifinals of the National
Grasscourt Tennis Championship at Calcutta South Club here
today.
While local girl Shivika needed 71 minutes to dump Geeta
Manohar of Air India 6-1 6-3, top seed Rushmi toiled to tame
fifth seed Treta Bhattacharyya 1-6 6-2 6-4.
In the men?s singles, fifth seed P C Vignesh humbled top
seed V M Ranjeet 6-4 6-7(6-8) 6-3 after a 144-minute battle.
Qualifier Vivek Shokeen defeated third seed Yannick
Nelord to advance to semifinals in closely fought two sets,
both of which went to tie breaker.
The first set saw serves being broken at the fag end.
Nelord lost his serve in the 11th game but broke back in the
12th. In the tie break Shokeen raced to 5-0 and finally took
the set at 7-2.
In the second set Shokeen was broken in the fifth game
and broke back in the eighth. The tie break went in Shokeen's
favour 7-5.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, December 24, 2009, 22:02