Two unseeded Sri Lankans in semis

Unseeded Franklyn Emmanul of Sri Lanka followed in the footsteps of his compatriot N S Nichendran to shock second seed Sanam K Singh of Chandigarh in straight sets and move into the boys' under-14 semi-finals in the DSCL Open National tennis championship in Delhi on Thursday.

Nichendran, who had toppled top seed M Jeevan Nedunchezien in the pre-quarter-finals on Wednesday, continued on his winning run, beating Paras Thakur of Chandigarh to also make it to the last four.

In the quarter-finals, Emmanul overpowered Singh 6-3,7-6(6) while Nichendran trounced Paras Thakur 6-2, 6-2.

Completing the last four line-up were fourth seed Summet Prakash Gupta of Uttar Pradesh and unseeded J Vishnu Vardhan of Andhra Pradesh.

Gupta defeated R Parivel of Tamil Nadu in a closely-contested match 6-3, 7-5 while Vardhan blanked Krishank Shah of Maharashtra 6-3,7-6(6).

In the boys' under-16 quarter-finals, Nihal Advani of Maharashtra upset second seed Rupesh Roy of Bengal in a lop-sided tie 6-1, 6-1.

Vishnu Vardhan, who booked a semi-final berth in under-14 category, also made it to the last four in the under-16 group after ousting fourth seed Aditya Madkekar of Maharashtra 6-1, 6-3.

Top seed Tushar Liberhan of Chandigarh and third seed M V Abhay Prakash of Karnataka are the other two semi-finalists.

Tushar waged a grim battle before overpowering ninth seed Divij Sharan of Delhi 6-7(3), 6-3, 7-6(5).

Abhay Prakash had no such problem. He humbled Tamil Nadu's Ajay Selvaraj 6-3, 6-2.