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Ranjeet crashes out despite valiant effort
NEW DELHI: VM Ranjeet tried everything he could but it wasn’t enough. Joining the ousted seeds’ list, the men’s third seed was shown the door by Kunal Anand in the
NEW DELHI: VM Ranjeet tried everything he could but it wasn’t enough. Joining the ousted seeds’ list, the men’s third seed was shown the door by Kunal Anand in the quarterfinals of the Fenesta Open national championship on Thursday.
Anand, the fifth seed, stayed strong through the heat and humidity to triumph 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 and book a semifinal berth. He will meet top seed and former national champion Vishnu Vardhan.
The former Davis Cup player, on the other hand, didn’t face much resistance from Dalwinder Singh, winning 6-4, 6-2 to advance to the last four.
Anand, whose current ranking is 882, has recently reached three ITF Futures doubles finals. The 24-year-old from Delhi has honed his skills at Siri Fort and his strong backhand from the baseline helped get out of tough situations at the DLTA Complex here.
Haadin Bava and Siddharth Vishwakarma were the other two to reach the last-four stage in the men’s draw.
The women’s side saw two tough matches. While unseeded Sharrmadaa Baluu and Pranjala Yadlapalli, seeded fourth, faced little trouble in getting past their opponents to reach the semis, Riya Bhatia and Eetee Maheta had to endure three-setters in their quest for national glory.
Riya, seeded third, lost the first set against Nidhi Chilumula in a close tie-break 6-7(6) but came back strong 6-3, 6-2 to set up a semis clash with Yadlapalli.
Maheta, the sixth seed, had to dig deep to get past Mihika Yadav, who had beaten top seed Dhruthi Venugopal in the first round, 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-5. She will play Yadlapalli for a place in the final.
