Adwithiya reaches Champion Series final

Orissa boy Adwithiya Pattnaik continued to perform well in junior circuit by reaching the under-14 singles final of the Vijay Madhavi AITA Championship Series Tennis Tournament at Andhra Loyola College in Vijaywada today. According to his coach Santosh Kumar Mallik, fifth seed Adwithiya ousted second seed V Prithvi Haas of Andhra Pradesh 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals to set up tomorrow’s title clash against top seed Tamil Nadu’s S Siddharth Reddy. A trainee of Bhubaneswar-based Gurukul Tennis Academy, Adwithiya started his campaign with a 9-3 win over qualifier Ponnala Siddharth (AP) yesterday and then upset fourth seed Mohammad Abrar (Tamil Nadu) 9-3 today to book his berth in the last four round. In under-14 boys’ doubles, Adwithiya and his partner AL Anirudh (AP) reached semifinals before losing to IB Akshy and Nikky Poonacha (TN) 6-9 today. A student of Delhi Public School (Kalinga), Adwithiya came to limelight by emerging champion in the under-14 singles event of the AITA Talent Series Tournament at Hyderabad earlier last week. It was his maiden National junior circuit title and helped him take a big leap from the current AITA ranking of 91.