Marach completes hat-trick

PUNE, MARCH 24. Top seed Oliver Marach of Austria completed the hat-trick by winning the third leg of the $6,250 Desai Brothers- ITF Satelite tennis championship here on Saturday. He had earlier won the Mumbai and Nagpur legs.

Marach stopped the dream run of the hard serving unseeded Pakistani Aisam Qureshi 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 in an hour and 16 minutes.

The two players playing in contrasting styles matched each other point for point and held on to their serves till 6-6 in the first set. Qureshi was serving well and his serve and volley game was able to catch Marach on the wrong foot.

But Marach, playing from the baseline, played some excellent down the line passing shots and made Qureshi run hard to earn the points.

In the tie-break, Qureshi lost his serve on the very first point but broke Marach in the third. Qureshi made a double fault the eighth point and conceded the advantage to Marach.

Marach lost his serve on the 11th point but won the set after Qureshi made an unforced error.

In the second set, Marach looked in control while Qureshi started losing heart. Marach broke Qureshi in the fourth to go up 3-1. He went on to hold his serve after that and won the set at 6-3.

With this win Marach now has 21 circuit points and is richer by $812.50 (Rs. 36,562) while Qureshi bagged $562.50 (Rs. 25,290) and 15 circuit points. Marach goes into the Masters, starting in Mumbai from March 26, as the top seed.

Earlier in the day, Nikos Rivos and Konstantinos Economidis of Greece defeated Artem Derepasko and Michail Elgin of Russia in straight sets 6-1, 6-4 to take the doubles title.

The results:

Singles: Oliver Marach bt Aisam Qureshi 7-6 (7- 5), 6-3. Doubles: Nikos Rivos/Konstantinos Economidis bt Artem Derepasko/Michail Elgin 6-1, 6-4.

- PTI

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