Mysuru: The men’s singles semi-finals turned out to be a disappointing affair with one player from each of the two semi-finals pulling out with injury, that left Olympian and former Davis Cupper Vishnu Vardhan and tournament top seed Ramkumar Ramnathan the opportunity to battle it out for the title in the Sobha ITF Mysuru Open.
The Infosys Campus courts saw a small crowd gathered to witness some intense tennis that took place till the pull outs on Court 2 and 3.
In the first semi-final, tournament second seed Karunuday Singh, who claimed the ITF Mandya Open last Saturday when Frenchman Antoine Escoffier withdrew in the final, fought tooth-and-nail in the first set.
It was clear who was calling the shots as the big serving Vishnu was in no mood to relinquish his service games. The No 8 seed did come across four break points in the first set, but saw the higher ranked Karunuday manage to cling on to force the tie-breaker.
The No 2 seed managed to win just one point while the second point was courtesy a double fault from Vishnu.
It was during the tie-breaker that Karunuday twisted his ankle and despite on-court treatment the player seemed in discomfort. When his service game was broken in the second set, he decided it was better to quit rather than aggravate the injury.
The second semi-final saw former Davis Cupper, Ranjeet Virali-Murugesan, who represented India in 2013, giving Ramkumar a run for his money initially.
It was the top seed who drew first blood breaking Ranjeet in the fifth game of the first set, but was broken immediately in the sixth as players held serve to push the set into the tie-breaker.
Ranjeet raced to a 3-1 lead but Ram Kumar made it 3-all and 4-all before Ranjeet claimed the next three points to take the first set.
However Ramkumar pulled up his game when it mattered and got that one break to take the second set.
Ranjeet who played the ITF Mandya Open as well as here with a troublesome knee and had pulled out of the doubles in both the events, decided to call it quits when trailing 2-4 in the decider.
Mohit-Vinayak clinch doubles crown
As expected second seeds Mohit Mayur Jayapakash partnering Vinayak Sharma Kaza had little trouble in squashing the challenge of the unseeded pair of Bhavesh Gour and Sidarth Rawat winning in straight sets at 6-4, 6-2.
The victory enabled Mohit and Vinayak share $ 620 and take 27 ATP points each while Bhavesh and Sidarth had to be content sharing $360 and pocketed 15 ATP points each.
Mr Tejeswi, Manager Facilities, Infosys Campus,Mysuru along with Mr Sunil Yajaman, Former National coach and KSLTA representative, gave away the awards to the doubles winners and finalists.
Results: Prefix denotes seeding):
Men’s singles (Semi-finals): (8) Vishnu Vardhan bt (2) Karunuday Singh 7-6 (2), 2-0 (retd); (1) Ramkumar Ramnathan bt (3) 6-7 (4), 6-4, 4-2 (retd).
Doubles final: (2) Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash/Vinayak Sharma Kaza bt Bhavesh Gour/Sidarth Rawat 6-4, 6-2.
