SM Krishna Memorial Open: Duhan delivers; Karan and Aryan fall

Mysuru's SD Prajwal Dev and his partner Nitin Kumar Sinha, combined well to knock out compatriots Parikshit Somani and Manish Sureshkumar in doubles semifinal.

Bengaluru: Promising Indian duo of Karan Singh and Aryan Shah were up against the top two seeds from Great Britain - Jay Clarke and Oliver Crawford - in their respective men’s singles quarterfinal contests here at the SM Krishna Memorial Open tennis tournament on Thursday.

Both the home favourites started off on a promising note but the initial fizz soon fizzled out against their physically and tactically superior opponents, ending the Indian pair's stay here at the week’s ITF M25 event at the SM Krishna Tennis Stadium. 

Karan, the fifth seed, was looking to avenge his semifinal loss to Clarke last week in Ahmedabad. Though the 21-year-old from Karnal in Haryana managed to push the top seed to the limit in the first, losing it in a tight tie-breaker, the gruelling set seemed to have sapped all the energy out of Karan. 

With his opponent struggling and frustrated, the 26-year-old Clarke secured a 7-6 (5), 6-1 win to advance to the semifinal. 

Sixth-seeded Aryan and second-seeded Crawford, on the other hand, were meeting for the fourth time with the 19-year-old Indian having lost all his previous three encounters in straight sets. 

The script of their duels turned out to be much the same as Crawford’s big serves and power-packed groundstrokes gave him a 6-3, 6-0 win over a clueless Aryan. Clueless because the faster courts in Bengaluru seemed to have favoured the 25-year-old Briton while Aryan, last week's champion in Ahmedabad, barely found his footing in their 69-minute contest. 

In an all-India last-eight match-up, Chirag Duhan got the better of Ishaque Eqbal to secure a 6-2, 7-6 (1) victory. The unseeded Duhan thus became the last surviving Indian in the singles draw of the tournament. 

Japan’s Ryuki Matsuda sealed his semifinal berth by defeating Russia's Maxim Zhukov which was another straight-set 6-4, 7-6 (3) affair on the day. 

Dev-Sinha in final

Mysuru's SD Prajwal Dev and his partner from Kolkata, Nitin Kumar Sinha, combined well to knock out compatriots Parikshit Somani and Manish Sureshkumar with a 6-0, 7-6 (5) scoreline in the doubles semifinal. 

After finishing on the wrong end in their singles matches, fourth-seeded Aryan and Karan had little steam as they went down 0-6, 1-6 to Nick Chappell (USA) and Grigoriy Lomakin (Kazakhstan) in the other last-four tie.

Results: Quarterfinal (Indians unless mentioned, prefix denotes seeding): Men: Singles: 1-Jay Clarke (GBR) bt 5-Karan Singh 7-6 (5), 6-1; Chirag Duhan bt Ishaque Eqbal 6-2, 7-6 (1); Ryuki Matsuda (Jpn) bt Maxim Zhukov (Rus) 6-4, 7-6 (3); 2-Oliver Crawford (GBR) bt 6-Aryan Shah 6-3, 6-0. 

Doubles (semifinal): 3-SD Prajwal Dev/ Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Parikshit Somani/ Manish Sureshkumar 6-0, 7-6 (5); Nick Chappell (USA)/ Grigoriy Lomakin (Kaz) bt 4-Aryan Shah/ Karan Shah 6-1, 6-0.