The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Divij stuns Rastogi, meets Vishnu in title clash

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Saturday, Dec 22, 2007
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Divij stuns Rastogi, meets Vishnu in title clash

S. Sabanayakan

Rushmi, Shalini in final

— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

EASY OUTING: Rushmi Chakravarthi did not have to sweat much in her semifinal encounter on Friday.

KOLKATA: There can never be a better sight in tennis than watching a serve and volley player in full flow.

Fourth seed Divij Sharan of Delhi displayed such virtues in demolishing top seed Karan Rastogi of Maharashtra 6-3, 6-3 in an hour and 14 minutes at the Centre Court of the South Club to make it to his maiden National grass court championship final here on Friday.

Awaiting him will be sixth seed J. Vishnu Vardhan of Andhra Pradesh.

Vishnu scotched the aspirations of the unseeded V.M. Ranjeeth of Tamil Nadu in a 75-minute action on Court No. 1 to win the semifinal contest 6-4, 6-2 and ensure his maiden final appearance.

Vishnu will also figure in the men’s doubles final against the Tamil Nadu pair of N. Sriram Balaji and Ranjeeth.

One-sided matches

The women’s singles matches were one-sided.

Top seed Rushmi Chakravarthi of Tamil Nadu put out Poojashree Venkatesh of Karnataka 6-3, 6-3 in one hour, while No. 8 seed Puri-born Shalini Sahoo of Delhi bundled out a nervous local girl, Treta Bhattacharyya, 6-0, 6-0.Grass is the favourite surface of the 21-year-old Divij, a B. Com. Student in Delhi University.

“I had a game plan for Karan and I stuck to it. I am quite happy the way I played against Karan whom I have never beaten in the past,” Divij said after the match.

The left-hander produced some stunning tennis.

Strong serves, solid groundstrokes, good mobility, precise placement and chip and charge proved too much for the top seed.

Unforced errors

Though Rastogi had a higher percentage of first serves in — 74 to 50 in the first set – Divij’s ploy worked against an opponent who made innumerable unforced errors.

A break in the fifth and eighth games gave Divij the first set in 34 minutes. Rastogi was expected to recover from the early setback.

Having beaten Harsh Mankad in the quarterfinals, Rastogi had the game to pull off a victory.

The second game went with service till 3-2 in favour of Divij.

A break in the sixth game would have given Divij the much-needed breakthrough and he achieved it with determined play.

Rastogi slips

Rastogi slipped from 40-30 with a double fault and failed to hold serve and lost the game. Divij just needed to hold his serve and he did it with aplomb and took the set in 35 minutes.

He got 77.5 per cent of his serve in in the second set and in both the sets he served four aces each as against Rastogi’s two and one respectively.

The results (prefix denotes seeding):

Semifinals: Men’s singles: Divij Sharan (Del) bt Karan Rastogi (Mah) 6-3, 6-3; 6-J. Vishnu Vardhan (AP) bt V.M. Ranjeeth (TN) 6-4, 6-2.

Women: Rushmi Chakravarthi (TN) bt Poojashree Venkatesh (Kar) 6-3, 6-3; Shalini Sahoo (Del) bt Treta Bhattacharyya (Ben) 6-0, 6-0.

Final: Women’s doubles: Geeta Manohar (AP) & Archana Venkataraman (Kar) bt 1-Rushmi Chakravarthi (TN) & Sonal Phadke (Mah) 6-3, 6-4. Semifinals: Rushmi & Sonal bt Chirashanti & Anupama Rajur (Kar) 6-0, 1-3 (retired); Geeta & Archana bt Poojashree & Janaki Gunuganti (AP) 6-1, 3-6, (10-3).

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