Sipaeya, Vishal in final

Top seed Sunil Kumar Sipaeya of Chandigarh and Punna Vishal of Andhra Pradesh will clash in the final of the Tata Futures tennis championships, being held at the Madras Club in Chennai.

In the semi-finals on Thursday, Sipaeya had to struggle to get past third-seed Vinod Sewa of West Bengal 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 while Punna had an easy outing against fourth seed Chatwinder Singh of Chandigarh, winning 6-1, 6-1.

In an essentially baseline battle, southpaw Sipaeya slugged it out with Sewa, breaking him in the first game of the first set to lead 2-0. However, Sewa broke back before being broken again. Leading 4-1, Sipaeya held serve thereafter to win the first set 6-3.

In the second set, Sewa staged a determined fightback, effecting breaks in the fourth and eighth games. He hit the ball with control on both flanks to win the set 6-2.

However, Sipaeya held his nerve and broke Sewa in the first and third games of the third set to race to a 3-0 lead. Sewa managed a break in the fourth game but Sipaeya held serve and romped home at 6-3.

The other semi-final, however, was one-sided, with Vishal breaking an off colour Chatwinder in the second and fourth games of the first set and again in the first, fifth and seventh games of the second set.