Sharan ends Yuki's winning streak

Yuki, seeded fourth, had earlier beaten Sharan in straight sets enroute his third ITF title win here last week. But on Thursday the 17-year-old’s game was rusty from the start even as Sharan came up with a solid all-round game to enter his first ITF semifinals of the year.
Sharan next plays second-seeded Vishnu Vardhan, who overcame Purav Raja 6-7 (8-10), 6-3, 7-5.

Sixth seed and last week’s finalist Rohan Gajjar upset third seed Hyun-woo Nam of South Korea 6-0, 6-3 to set up a semifinal clash with top-seed Kento Takeuchi of Japan whom he had beaten last week. Takeuchi beat seventh seed and national champion Ranjith Virali-Murugesan 6-3, 6-3. The 22-year-old left-handed Sharan showed good pair of hands at the nets and hit some deft volleys to complement his groundstrokes. Yuki’s five double faults in the first set only compounded his misery. He had to remain content with just a game in the first set when he broke Sharan in the sixth game.

A few unforced errors by Sharan allowed Yuki to bounce back in the second set and with a backhand pass on his third break point in the ninth game, he broke Sharan for 5-4 lead before serving out the set.

Sharan continued to play with confidence in the decider and eked out an early break in the second game. Yuki had his chances to break back in the fifth game but squandered three break points. Sharan then went on to win the set and the match in the eighth game when Yuki committed his seventh double-fault on the match point.