The Hindu : No stopping Asha Nandakumar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 13, 2003

Sport

Sport - Tennis

No stopping Asha Nandakumar

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE June 12. Asha Nandakumar of Bangalore is making waves in the AITA junior circuit. Close on the heels of her title triumph in the Championship Series held last week, Asha stormed into the semifinals, toppling the top seed Sandri Gangotri of Andhra Pradesh at 6-4, 6-0 in the girls' under-18 singles of the Embassy-AITA Super Series championship at the Sadhashivanagar Club courts here on Thursday.

The 16-year-old Asha, who has a good reach, went for her shots without holding anything back against her rival. The notable factor was her poise and confidence, as she belted winners with her strong forehand. She also served steadily to keep her rival Sandri under pressure.

Asha, with a double break in the third and fifth games, raced to a 5-0 lead. She eased off the pedal at that stage and with Sandri counter-attacking, Asha began making unforced errors and allowed Sandri to get back into the set.

The Andhra girl broke Asha in the sixth and eighth games to cut the deficit to 4-5, but Asha pulled her socks up and held on to her serve in the tenth game to close the set at 6-4.

Asha, hitting a new high, played with lot more focus and flair to simply romped through the second without conceding a game. She was joined by Varsha Shivashankar (Karnataka), Paritala Meghana (Andhra Pradesh) and S. Preethi (Tamil Nadu) in the last four.

In the under-14 section, second seed V. Pooja Shree blasted her way past Nandita Krishnan of Tamil Nadu 6-0, 6-0 to make the semifinals. Top seed Parija Maloo of Maharashtra, however, conceded her tie against Sushruta Reddy of Andhra Pradesh after trailing 3-4 as she aggravated a shoulder injury. The other qualifiers were Akshita B. Raj (Karnataka) and Prerna Mythri (Andhra Pradesh).

The dream dies for Abhay

Second seed Abhay Prakash's hopes of winning return to circuit went up in smoke as he went down to Siddarth Patil of Maharashtra at 6-3, 6-4 in the boys' under-18 singles quarterfinals. Abhay, who had a four-month layoff from the game due to academic commitments, struggled to find his rhythm against steady hitting Patil.

Top seed Jeevan Nedunchezhian, however, sailed into the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over M. Tejesvi Rao of Maharashtra. The sixth-seeded S. Prateek of Karnataka, who claimed a double crown in the Championship series last week, also entered the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Vijaysunder Prashanth of Tamil Nadu.

The fourth-seeded Rohan Gide also made the last four stage, stopping R.K. Praveen of Karnataka 7-5,6-2.

Top seed Kinshuk Sharma of Chandigarh stayed on course with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Preetam Roy Moras of Maharashtra, and he was joined by two Karnataka lads Mesheer Vaswani, Sujit Sachidanand, besides V. Vignesh of Tamil Nadu in the semifinals.

The boys under-14 singles and girls under-14 singles finals will be played at the KSLTA courts on Friday and the under-18 final are scheduled at the Sadhashivanagar Club courts on Saturday.

The results:

Boys: Under-14: quarterfinals: Kinshuk Sharma (Chd) bt Preetam Mors (Kar) 6-4, 6-0; V. Vignesh (TN) bt Ashwin Vijayraghavan (AP) 6-4, 6-1; Mesheer Vaswani (Kar) bt Jairaj Desai (Mah) 6-3, 6-0; Sujit Sachidanand (Kar) bt A.N. Sureshkrishna (AP) 6-4, 7-5.

Pre-quarterfinals: Kinshuk Sharma bt Mikhail. R. Shetty (Mah) 3-6, 6-1, 7-5; Preetam Roy Moras bt Debendra Das (Mah) 2-6, 6-3, 6-2; V. Vignesh bt Pranav Gandhi (Mah) 3-6, 6-3, 6-0; Ashwin Vijayraghavan bt Sushanth Nambiar (AP) 6-3, 7-5; Sujit Sachidanand bt Siddarth Kaushik (TN) 6-2, 6-2; A.S. Suresh Krishna bt B. Navneethakannan 3-6, 6-2, 6-2; Jairaj Desai bt Akash Gujarati (Mah) 6-0, 3-6, 6-3; Mesheer Vaswani bt Mohd. Rashid (AP) 6-3, 6-2.

Quarterfinals: Under-18: Jeevan Nedunchezhian (TN) bt M. Thejasvi Rao (Mah) 6-3, 6-4; Rohan Gide (Mah) bt R.K. Praveen (Kar) 7-5, 6-2; S. Prateek (Kar) bt Vijay Sunder Prashanth (TN) 6-3, 6-4; Siddharth Patil (Mah) bt S. Abhay Prakash (Kar) 6-3, 6-4.

Girls: Under-14 (quarterfinals): Sushrutha Reddy (AP) bt Parija Maloo (Mah) 4-3 conceded; Akshitha B. Raj (Kar) bt M. Niroshirtha (AP) 6-1, 6-3; Prerna Maithri (AP) bt Surabhi Varma (Mah) 6-2, 6-2; Pooja Shree (Kar) bt Nandita Krishnan (TN) 6-0, 6-0.

Pre-quarterfinals: Parija Maloo bt Janani Suresh (TN) 7-5, 7-6 (7-4); Shusrutha Reddy bt P.V. Rajarajeshwari (AP) 6-4, 7-5; Akshitha B. Raj bt Divya M. Rao (AP) 6-0, 6-1; M. Niroshitha bt Janaki S. Rao (AP) 6-4, 6-1; Prerna Maithri (AP) bt Sanjana Kapur (Del) 5-7, 6-2, 6-1; Surabhi Verma bt Shuba A. Chakrala (Kar) 6-0, 6-0; Poojashree bt Gurmeet Kaur (Kar) 6-0, 6-0.

Under-18 (quarterfinals): Asha Nandakumar (Kar) bt Sandri Gangotri (AP) 6-4, 6-0; Varsha Shivshankar (Kar) bt Neha Rana (Del) 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 6-0; P. Paritala Meghana (AP) bt D. Tejaswini (AP) 4-2 (conceded); S. Preethi (TN) bt Pooja Shetty (Kar) 7-6 (7-0), 6-1.

Pre-quarterfinals: Sandri Gangotri bt Shushrutha Reddy (AP) 6-2, 6-1; S. Preethi bt Kanisha Mehta (Mah) 6-2, 6-0; D. Thejaswini bt Sanjana Kapur (Del) 6-4, 6-0; Parithala Meghana (AP) bt P. Priya (Mah) 6-, 7-5; Neha Rana bt Preethi Shravan (AP) 3-6, 6-1, 6-1; Varsha Shivashankar bt Vandana Murali (TN) 6-1, 3-6, 6-4; Pooja Shetty bt Parija Maloo (Mah) 6-4, 6-3.

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