Marach romps into last four

Our Correspondent

Top seeded Oliver Marach is on the verge of creating a record of sorts on Indian soil -- of winning all the three legs of the ITF Satellite tournament and also the concluding Masters, the concluding event on the circuit.

The athletically built Austrian on Wednesday entered the Masters semi-finals, easily brushing aside eight seeded Russian youngster Michail Elgin 6-2, 6-4 in the quarter-finals.

Marach, at the beginning of this month, had won the first leg of the Satellite tournament in Bombay and followed it up with titles at Nagpur and Pune, in the second and third legs respectively.

He now meets sixth seeded Ivan Vajda of Croatia in the semi-finals. The latter was also in crackling form upstaging Donavan September of South Africa. The loser quit citing injury, after trailing 1-6 and 0-5 in the second set.

Russia's second seeded Artem Derepasko also posted a straight-set win over unseeded Fred Hemmes of The Netherlands, winning 6-3, 7-5, and will now take on Pakistani third seed Aiswan Qureshi, who despatched seventh seeded Greek Konstantinos Economidis 6-1, 6-4.

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