Bopanna advances, Srinath exits

Indians had mixed fortunes in the ITF men's Futures tennis tournament at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association courts on Thursday, as young Rohan Bopanna moved into the semi-finals while the more experienced Prahlad Srinath made an exit at the quarter-final stage.

Bopanna had to sweat little for a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Ben-Qiang Zhu of China while Srinath fought till the end before going down 4-6, 6-7 (3/7) to second seeded Lee Childs of Britain.

It is an irony that the vanquished Srinath is coaching the upcoming Bopanna. Though the arrangement is only for the present fortnight, it will be interesting to see how it turns out in future, as Bopanna is a member of the Indian Davis Cup team while Srinath is not.

Lee Childs had no such thoughts to distract him as he dissected Srinath's baseline game with clinical effeciency. The eighth seeded Indian struggled throughout with his forehand, and at times even the simplest of them went agonisingly inches wide off the court.

Childs on the other hand drilled his forehands right on the baseline, cramping Srinath for pace. He also had a ripping backhand which Srinath found hard to cope with.

Childs broke Srinath in the tenth game and served out for the first set. Srinath kept pace with the Briton in the second, but two unforced errors, combined with a controve- sial line-call, cost him the tie-breaker and the match.

Earlier reports
Three Indians in last eight
Vishal Uppal shocks third seed Mark Hilton
Sridhar, Sipaeya lose in first round