The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Harsh wins Challenger title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 25, 2006

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Sport - Tennis

Harsh wins Challenger title

Harsh Mankad. — PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT

NEW DELHI: Harsh Mankad won his maiden Challenger singles title by defeating Joshua Goodall of Britain 7-6(1), 7-6(4) in the final of the $25,000 event at Manchester.

The win fetched him 50 ATP points and $3,600. It also helped the 26-year-old to become the top Indian on the ATP computer, as he jumped 109 places to 287, ahead of Rohan Bopanna (298) and Karan Rastogi (344).

It was the fourth singles title of his career. Harsh had reached the semifinals of Challenger events at Bangalore in 2003 and Nottingham in 2005.

Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj clinched the doubles title of the $75,000 Challenger tournament at Aptos, California. In the final, the pair defeated Rajeev Ram and Todd Widom of the US 3-6, 6-2, 10-6.

However, there was disappointing news from the $25,000 ITF women's tournament at Chengdu, China, as Tara Iyer lost 6-4, 0-6, 2-6 to Zhou Yi-Miao of China in the third and final qualifying round.

Sania slips to 42

Meanwhile, Sania Mirza dropped two places to 42 in the singles list but saw her doubles standing improve to a career high 31st in the latest WTA rankings issued on Monday.

Sania remains the highest-ranked Indian in both singles and doubles.

The US-based Shikha Uberoi is the next Indian in the singles and doubles list. Shikha has dropped three places to 171 in the singles rankings and has fallen one step to 144th in doubles.

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