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First four in last four

Finally, it's a fight between the top four seeds, in the third leg of the ITF men's Satellite Tennis tournament at Bangalore.

On the fourth day today, top-seeded Artem Derepasko of Russia earned a semi-final meeting with third-seeded Syed Fazaluddin, after staging a grand recovery against Uzbekistan's Anton Kokurin in the quarter-finals. Derepasko had beaten Fazaluddin in the final of the second leg at Mumbai.

The other semi-final pits two Indians against each other, with the Bangalore leg winner and second-seeded, Prahlad Srinath running into fourth-seeded Harsh Mankad.

Derepasko had to draw on all his skills to come out trumps in a marathon match, which lasted two hours and 28 minutes, and saw both the players play some excellent tennis.

After losing the first set, the Russian came back strongly in the second by forcing his opponent on the defensive. He repeatedly charged the net and caught Kokurin on the wong foot with measured cross-court volleys to win the set.

The decider was a battle royal, with both players serving exceedingly well. However, once the match went into the decider, the Uzbek turned earratic as Derepasko won 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4).

Srinath, meanwhile, had an easy passage against qualifier Minh Le of the USA. The Indian won 6-4, 6-3.

Commenting on his semi-final clash with Mankad, Srinath said he expected it to be a good match.''I will just go and play my game, though I hope to play better than today.''

Mankad recovered to beat Andrei Youznyi 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 in just over two hours.

The last quarter-final, between Fazaluddin and sixth-seeded Vinod Sridhar, saw the former, after lasping in concentration in the second set, win 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.

Agencies