ITF Manipal Open Tennis Tournament – 2011: Day 3

By Subhas Marne
Bellevision Media Network

Manipal, 26 May 2011: On a day which featured some prolonged ties in a hot and humid conditions, it as a survival of the fittest in the Corroration Bank- ITF Manipal Open tennis championship which entered quarter-final round at the MARENA sports Complex courts here on Wednesday. The talented local lad and wild card, Vinod Gowda, after a spirited display in the first set, where had chances leading 5-4 in the first set, went down to the third seeded Japanese , Niki Takuto 6-7 (4) 1-6.

 

Gowda from HPTC, matched his rival stroke for stroke in the first set, but in tie-break, after running his rival close till 4-3, came up with few mishits to lose the advantage and Takuto buoyed by that success, ran through the second set, winning easily at 6-1.

 

Abhijith Tiwari

 

Niki

 

Vinod Gowda

 

Rohan Gujjar 

 

In one of the longest ties of the day, the Russian fifth seed, Vitali Reshetinkov, waged a grim battle to put down a plucky Tejesvi Rao 6-4,6-7 (7),7-5. The temperamental Russian, received code violation earning from the chair umpire in the tie break of the second set, which he lost. But he gathered his wits to outhit Tejesvi Rao in the decider.

 

The fourth seed, Vijayant Malik , was stretched to three sets by Sudanwa Sitaram, before he won at 6-2,0-6, 6-2 whie Ankit Sachdeva rallied to beat giant killer Abhijeet Tiwari 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-5. The top two seeds, Ranjeet and Rohan Gajjar however had it easy as they rolled into the quarter-finals with easy wins. Ranjeet defeated Sumit Shinde 6-2,6-3 while, Gajjar outplayed P.Vignesh 6-2, 6-3.Vikram Reddy, pulled off an upset , beating the erratic seventh seed, Koki Matsunaga 6-4,3-6, 7-6 ( 2).