JOIN USDavis Cupper Sanam Singh marched into the quarterfinals of the ITF Dharwad Open at the DDTA Courts with a hard-fought win over Kaza Vinayak Sharma here on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old Sanam was stretched by Kaza with his powerful forehands, but the former held on and dictated proceedings later on with his consistency to come out on top with a 6-2, 6-3 win in the pre-quarterfinals.
Top seed N Sriram Balaji had a tough time en route to booking a berth in the quarterfinals when his opponent Siddarth Rawat retired in the second set with Balaji leading 6-4, 2-0.
Third seed VM Ranjeet handed out a couple games to Lakshit Sood before tightening his game to capture a 6-3, 6-4 win, while Ram Kumar Ramanathan was pushed to hard before Vijayant Malik injured his ankle and retired with the score on 7-5, 3-1.
Arjun Kadhe continued to put up an impressive display as he eased past Switzerland’s Luca Margoli 6-2, 6-3, while title contender Vijay Sundar Prashant had no trouble dispatching P Vignesh in his 6-3, 6-3 victory.
Amongst the foreign players, the Netherlands’ Colin van Beem, who was warned under the code of conduct for using abusive language, had to fight hard and long before posting a 6-3, 6-7 (6-8), 6-2 over Russia’s Seregei Krotiouk.
Results (pre-quarterfinals): Sanam Singh bt Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-2, 6-3; VM Ranjeet bt Lakshit Sood 6-3, 6-4; Arjun Kadhe bt Luca Margaroli 6-2, 7-5; N Sriram Balaji bt Siddarth Rawat 6-4, 2-0 (retd); Ram Kumar Ramanathan bt Vijayant Malik 7-5, 3-1 (retd); Torsten Wietiska (Ger) bt Jeroen Benard (Ned) 6-2, 6-0; N Vijay Sundar Prashanth bt P Vignesh 6-3, 6-3; Colin Van Beem (Ned) bt Seregei Krotiouk (Rus) 6-3, 6-7 (6-8), 6-2. Doubles (quarterfinals): Ashwin Vijayaraghavan/ Ajai Selvaraj bt Kunal Anand/ Ronak Manuja 6-3, 6-4; Amrit Narasimhan/ Michael Shabaz (US) bt Vijay Sundar Prashanth/ Arun Prakashrajagopal 7-6 (7-5), 6-4; Sergei Krotiouk (Rus)/ Luca Margaroli (Sui) bt William Kendall/ Sagar Manjanna 7-6 (7-1), 6-3; Fariz Mohammed / P Viignesh bt Arjun Khade/ Kaza Vinayak Sharma 6-2, 1-0 (retd).