Bad light stalls GAIL momentum

Saketh Myneni continued to impress as he posted a facile win over VM Ranjeet to give GAIL a 1-0 lead over ONGC before bad light stopped play in the final of the PSPB inter-unit tennis championship at the KSLTA courts here on Wednesday.

In the men’s team event final, Saketh put GAIL in the drivers’ seat with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Ranjeet in 90 minutes before Vishnu Vardhan and R Ramkumar faced off in the second rubber.

 

Ramkumar won the first set 7-6 (7-0) to raise GAIL’s hopes of a 2-0 sweep but Vardhan fought back to win the second set 6-4 before play was called off due to bad light.

 

In a third-place play-off match, IOCL posted a 2-0 win over OIL riding on the back of wins for Rohan Bopanna and Vasudev Reddy.

 

Bopanna posted a 6-3, 6-4 win over CS Mohanty, while Anshuman Dutta retired after losing the first set 3-6 to Vasudev.

 

In the veterans team event semifinals, IOCL got the better of ONGC and will lock horns with OIL, who edged out BPCL in their semifinal encounter, in the final.

 

Solid start

 

Myneni provided a solid start for GAIL when he took the opening set quite easily after breaks of serve in the second and fourth games before Ranjeet managed to win his first service game in the sixth, but could not do much more.

 

Ranjeet curbed his erratic stroke play in the second set with a much better display and kept passing Myneni with solid returns.

In fact, he had a good chance of breaking his rival in the sixth game and had two break points before Myneni rallied to hold serve.

Myneni then seized a decisive break in the ninth game which saw Ranjeet slump with a double fault and two mishits.

Myneni then served out the set to take the match. 

 

The contest between Vardhan and Ramkumar provided lot of sparks.

 

The young Ramkumar matched the fire power of his Olympian rival in good measure and in the first set.

Both hung on to their serve grimly till the tie-break that Ramkumar won quite comfortably.

 

Vishnu hit back for ONGC taking the second set at 6-4, before play was called off for the day.

Results: Men’s team event: Final: GAIL lead ONGC 1-0 (Saketh Myneni bt VM Ranjeet 6-1, 6-4).

 

Third place play-off: IOCL bt OIL 2-0 (Rohan Bopanna bt CS Mohanty 6-3, 6-4; Vasudev Reddy bt Anshuman Dutta 6-3 (retd).

 

Veterans team event (semifinals): IOCL bt ONGC 2-1; OIL bt BPCL 2-1.