Kirtane goes down tamely

The Indian challenge in the Desai Brothers ITF Satellite tennis championship ended on Thursday with the exit of Nitin Kirtane in the quarter-finals.

The former India Davis Cupper put up a brave fight but it was not enough to overcome the superior play of Konstantinos Economidis of Greece as he went down 4-6, 4-6 in a match that lasted one hour and 10 minutes.

Economidis, who defeated second seed Russian Artem Derepasko on Wednesday, lost his serve in the second game of the first set to concede a 2-0 lead to Kirtane. But he immediately bounced back to break the Indian in the fifth and ninth games to clinch the set.

In the second set, Economidis broke Kirtane in the fifth and seventh games. Kirtane could get only one game back by breaking Economidis in the eighth but could not stop him from taking the set and the match.

In an another enconter, Aisam Qureshi of Pakistan stopped the winning run of Anton Kokurin of Uzbekistan, winning 6-1, 6-4 in an hour and 15 minutes to enter the semi-finals.

Kokurin, who defeated third seed Ivan Vajda of Croatia in the second round, looked out of sorts against the in-form Qureshi and lost the first set 1-6. In the second set, he was 1-3 down but came back to break Qureshi in the sixth and even take a 4-3 lead. However, Qureshi broke Kokurin in the ninth and went on to win the set and match.