16-Mar-2010 429
Orissa continued to impress in the Rs 50,000 AITA Men’s Ranking Tennis Tournament with three players (Chinmay Pradhan, Vijay Avinandan, Santosh Mallik) from the city-based Gurukul Tennis Academy marching into the singles quarterfinals at Kalinga Stadium here today.GTA spearhead Chinmay Pradhan stole the show of the day when he upset the apple cart of sixth seed Surana Kamal (Karnataka) in straight sets. His doubles partner and qualifier Avinandan overcame junior statemate Anshu Kumar Bhuyan, while Mallik, the head coach of GTA, thrashed Binumani Maniyan also in straight sets. Former Davis Cupper and top seed Nitin Kirtane (Maharashtra) and second seed Ajai Selvaraj (Tamil Nadu) stayed on course for the title clash as they won their pre-quarterfinal matches comfortably. Parthasarathi Srinivasan (TN), Timothy Reynold (Kerala) and Bharat Bharadwaj (Haryana) completed the quarterfinal line-up with contrasting wins. Ajay Nishank of another city academy, Ace-base Tennis Resort and Satirtha Patnaik kept Orissa’s flag flying in doubles, reaching the semifinals with a smooth win over P Srinivasan and M Lohani. The host state’s hope for another semifinal berth failed to materialise as Chinmay Pradhan and Vijay Avinandan lost to the top seed duo of Nitin Kirtane and Ajai Selvaraj.
