Sanam loses in finals of ITF Futures tournament

Chennai: India`s Sanam Singh suffered a 1-6, 6-3, 2-6 loss to top seed Spaniard Enrique Lopez Perez in the finals of the MCC S R Subramaniam Memorial ITF Futures Men`s tennis tournament on saturday.

Enrique, ranked 253, made good use of his booming serves to rattle Sanam as he took 77 minutes to beat Indian, ranked 368, at the MCC Courts. Sanam was off colour today as he could win only his first game in the first set but surrendered the initiative as Enrirue held the stage with elan in breaking the Indian in the 3rd, 5th and 7th games with solid three break points in each of these games. However, Sanam made amends in the second set as he upped his first serve success to great effect and most often went for the kill of return of serves of the Spaniard. Sanam broke Enrique in third and seventh games for the set and drifted the match to the decider. Before commencement of the third set, Enrique took six minutes time out to rest room and Sanam, who still stayed focused broke the Spaniard`s first game. But, Enrique swiftly returned the compliment by breaking back Sanam. With Sanam not falling prey to his rival`s tactics and keeping his cool, Enrique started advancing forward and kept the rallies and pressurised the Indian, who double faulted often (in all 8 in the match) and was broken in the 4th and 8th games to lose the final.