CHENNAI, 6 Apr: Second-seeded Ramanathan Ramkumar moved into the last eight of the singles section in the BR Adithyan Memorial ITF men’s Futures tennis tournament here on Thursday along with four of his Indian compatriots.
Ramkumar cruised past Kazakhstan’s Grigory Lomakin 6-0, 6-2 in the pre-quarterfinals to set up a last eight clash with fellow Indian player Kaliyanda Poonacha (no.8 seed), a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Karan Singh. The other Indians to advance to the quarterfinals were Sidharth Rawat (no.4 seed), Manish Suresh Kumar (7th seed) amd third-seeded Digvijay Singh.
The number one seed Vladyslav Orlov of Ukraine was forced to fight back after losing the opening set before booking a berth in the last eight. His opponent Boris Butulija (Serbia) retired while trailing 1-3 in the third set. Indian Yash Chaurasia, who had taken out Vishnu Varadan in the last round, was no match for David Perez Sanz (no.6 seed) going down 1-6, 4-6. Sidharth Rawat prevailed over the experienced V M Ranjit 7-6, 6-3 to advance in the singles draw. In the doubles event, the No.2 seeds Parikshit Somani and Manish Kumar were beaten despite winning the first set 6-0 by Vladyslav Orlov (Ukraine) and Patrick Toman (US), who won the next 6-4 before clinching the match tie-break 10-8.
Two Indian teams- Nitin Kumar Sinha and Vishnu Vardhan (No.3 seed) and Sai Karteek Reddy and T Macheria secured a last four spot as their opponents Boris Butulija and Woo Bin Shin (Korea) gave a walkover. (PTI)