Yuvan Nandal hangs on to stretch fight

Yuvan Nandal won a cliff-hanger against Sam Chawla 6-3, 6-7(1), 7-5 in the under-16 quarterfinals of the Fenesta National sub-junior tennis championship at the DLTA Complex on Thursday.

It was a brave fight by Sam, to fight back from being down 3-5 in the decider despite being hampered by cramps, but Yuvan was the better player at the crunch, with his fitness and strokes.

Yuvan will play Karan Singh, and the other semifinal will be between Udit Gogoi and Dhruv Tangri.

In the girls under-16 event, Vaishnavi Adkar unleashed her fluent strokes on both flanks to get past the fighting second seed Sanjana Sirimalla 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

In the semifinals, Vaishnavi will play Pari Singh, who made the under-14 semifinals by saving four set points in the first set tie-break against Nandini Dixit.

The results (quarterfinals):

Under-16 boys: Yuvan Nandal bt Sam Chawla 6-3, 6-7(1), 7-5; Karan Singh bt Nithilan Eric 6-2, 6-3; Dhruv Tangri bt Heerak Vora 6-1, 6-4; Udit Gogoi bt Ananth Muni 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Under-14 boys: Agriya Yadav bt Rohan Agarwal 6-2, 7-5; Manas Dhamne bt Aditya Rathi 6-3, 6-4; NavyaVerma bt Aayushmaan Arjeria 7-6(2), 1-6, 6-4; Aayush Bhat bt Arunava Majumder 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-1.

Under-16 girls: Reshma Maruri bt Karthika Vijay 6-1, 6-0; Radhika Mahajan bt Renee Singh 6-4, 7-5; Pari Singh bt Kundana Bandaru 6-3, 7-5; Vaishnavi Adkar bt Sanjana Sirimalla 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

Under-14 girls: Pari Singh bt Nandini Dixit 7-6(7), 6-2; Pavitra Parikh bt Sweta Samanta 6-0, 6-1; Madhurima Sawant bt Ruma Gaikaiwari 6-3, 6-0; Shruti Ahlawat bt Kundana Bandaru 6-3, 6-2.

(Courtesy: The Hindu)