Eetee Maheta escapes the clutches of Mihika Yadav

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Eetee Maheta escapes the clutches of Mihika Yadav

 

NEW DELHI, OCT. 6: Eetee Maheta survived a matchpoint to beat Mihika Yadav 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-5 in the women’s quarterfinals of the Fenesta National tennis championship at the DLTA Complex here on Thursday.

It was 16-year-old Mihika, who had beaten the top seed Dhruthi Venugopal in the first round, who called the shots for the most part of the match. But, the gutsy Eetee stayed with her in the rallies to win the gripping contest that lasted three hours and 11 minutes.

There was no hint of the turn of things in store when Mihika led 4-2 in the second set. Eetee won eight of the next nine games to take a 4-1 lead in the third set.

The fighter that she is, the 16-year-old Mihika led 5-4 and had a matchpoint on Eetee’s serve before the latter saw through the tricky phase.

In the semifinals, Eetee will play the former Asian junior champion Pranjala Yadlapalli who outplayed Jennifer Luikham for the loss of three games.

The other semifnal will feature, Riya Bhatia and Sharrmadaa Baluu. Riya missed two setpoints in the first set before pulling through for a 6-7(7), 6-3, 6-2 victory over Nidhi Chilumula.
Sharrmadaa Baluu tackled the forceful groundstrokes of Vaidehi Chaudhari with craft for a 7-5, 6-4 victory.

In the men’s section, Kunal Anand put out the former national champion 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 in setting up a semifinal against another former champion Vishnu Vardhan. Kunal turned his match on the head after trailing 3-4 in the second set, by winning seven games on the trot.

Ranjeet had endured a tough battle in the earlier round that spanned three hours and 25 minutes against Sai Saran Reddy and thus perhaps did not have the reserves to fight on even terms in the climax against the strong Kunal.

Haadin Bava continued with his dream run in setting up a semifinal against Siddharth Vishwakarma.

In the junior boys event, defending champion BR Nikshep was dismissed by the 6’ 3’’ tall Suresh Dakshineshwar, a very talented lad who trains with coach Lakshman Chakravarthi at the Loyola College in Chennai. Suresh had in fact lost to Nikshep in the ITF juniors event in Chennai in the semifinals, but played his big game to perfection this day, to tame the champion.

Suresh will play Nitin Kumar Sinha, while the other semifinal wil feature second seed Dhruv Sunish against Paramveer Singh Bajwa.

In the girls section, Humera Shaik recovered from being down 2-5 in the decider to beat Sahaja Yamalapalli in a three-hour battle. She will play Sai Dedeepya who stopped the fine run of Tanisha Kashyap in straight sets.

The other semifinal will be between Akanksha Bhan who bounced back from being down 3-5 in the decider to beat Jennifer Luikham, and Lalita Devarakonda.

The results (quarterfinals):

Men: Vishnu Vardhan bt Dalwinder Singh 6-2, 6-4; Kunal Anand bt VM Ranjeet 5-7, 6-4, 6-2; Haadin Bava bt Jayesh Pungliya 7-5, 6-2; Siddharth Vishwakarma bt Tejas Chaukulkar 7-5, 6-4.

Women: Eetee Maheta bt Mihika Yadav 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-5; Pranjala Yadlapalli bt Jennifer Luikham 6-2, 6-1; Riya Bhatia bt Nidhi Chilumula 6-7(7), 6-3, 6-2; Sharrmadaa Baluu bt Vaidehi Chaudhari 7-5, 6-4.

Under-18 boys: Suresh Dakshineshwar bt BR Nikshep 6-2, 6-3; Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Abhinav Sanjiv 7-5, 6-3; Paramveer Singh Bajwa bt Sanket Tomar 7-5, 6-3; Dhruv Sunish bt Param Pun 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

Under-18 girls: Lalita Devarakonda bt Urmi Pandya 6-2, 6-1; Akanksha Bhan bt Jennifer Luikham 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4); Humera Shaik bt Sahaja Yamalapalli 7-6(6), 4-6, 7-5; Sai Dedeepya bt Tanisha Kashyap 6-2, 6-3