Coming as happy tidings for the tennis loving members of Gandhinagar Club, the venue, second seed Vijay Kannan and unseeded Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan fought through a three setter semifinal to set up an all-Indian clash for the title in the US $10,000 prize money ITF Futures tennis tournament here on Friday.
Vijay and Jeevan, who play for the Club, defeated third-seeded Hsin Han Lee of Taipei 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2 and eighth-seeded Guilherme Ochiai of Brazil 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 respectively, in the last four stage, after struggling in the second set, playing lacadaisical tennis and finding the rhythm again in the deciding thrid set.
For Jeevan, seen as a rising talent with good volleying and sharp ground strokes, the semifinal win came as a fillip in the wake of some poor performances in recent times.
In fact, the four time quarterfinalist in the national championships and who had come close to be named in the Davis Cup squad on a couple of occasions, it was the first entry into the final of the Futures event.