Vishnu Vardhan In ITF Tournament Quarters

[jayanthi mandhalapu]

Vishnu Vardhan of India has entered the quarter-finals of the $10,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) defeating Briton Max Jones by 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.The match was played at the DLTA complex on Wednesday.

Top seed Vardhan, who won the ITF tournament played in July, served big and powerful groundstrokes and rattled his opponent. The Briton struggled to land his first serve.

Jones could hold his serve only once in the first set, in the fourth game, and Vishnu reeled off the last three games as Jones kept spraying his shots.

A couple of forehand errors by Vardhan gave Jones an unexpected break in the fourth game of the second set .This encouraged the Briton to raise his level of play by a notch. His first serves percentage improved and he started hitting fluently. He comfortably closed the set in the ninth game.

Vardhan was back in form in the decider, breaking Jones in the sixth game, before closing the set .The match was played for one hour and 55 minutes.

Vardhan said, "I am glad that I pulled it off. I am getting better with each match. They have changed the balls here. They are harder now, which is good, but it took me some time to adjust to it,"

Vardhan will challenge Rupesh Roy in his next game. Roy made it to the last eight stage, after Ronak Manuja withdrew with a back problem, trailing 6-7(3), 0-2.

In the other second round singles matches, N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth, who beat fourth seed Rohan Gajjar on Tuesday, continued his win ,taking over experienced Ashutosh Singh  by 6-3, 6-4. Prashanth will now play against fifth seed Peter Lucassen of Netherlands. Peter Lucassen was given a tough fight by Indian Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan before retiring due to cramps, trailing 6-7(6), 4-6, 1-4.

India's Ranjeeth Virali-Murugesan beat Sudanwa Sitaram  by 6-1, 6-3 .He will face  Young-Jun Kim of South Korea  in the quarter-final .Kim overcame American Shane Le Porte  by 6-7(5),7-5, 6-2 to enter the quarters.

Britain's Sean Thornley defeated compatriot Tim Bradshaw by 6-3, 7-6(6). He will face third-seeded Chris Eaton who overcame South Korea's Seong-Yoon Chung by 6-2, 7-5.