ITF Junior Tennis:

Dinesh Kanthan meets China’s TAO in final

Richard DWIGHT

The group 5 of the ITF Junior Circuit (week (1)) tennis tournament now in its concluding stages witnessed the singles semifinals of the boys and girls yesterday at the SLTA Courts.

In the boys singles Sri Lanka’s T. Dinesh Kanthan seeded No. 4 was pitted against China’s Zhaoyl Cao the No. 2 seed, whilst in the other India’s Sidharth Sivakumar No. 1 met China’s J.N. Tao seeded No. 3. Both Chinese did well to be semifinalists.

In the girls semifinals one of which was amongst the two Indians, Tarrannum Handa, the No. 2 seed and Divija Mandava No. 6 the other was between the two Chinese Yan Wang and Siyu Qin.

The semifinal tie between Dinesh Kanthan and Cao turned out to be one sided with Dinesh Kanthan serving well and driving forcefully to accrue points, win games and take the first set with ease.

He was dexterous enough to be most skilful and continued in the same vein to take the second set and win the tie as well in straight sets.

In the second semifinal between, J.N. Tao and Sidharth Sivakumar - Tao had things his way and dominated play to the extent that he outplayed Sivakumar to win the tie in straight sets.

There will now be an interesting clash between Sri Lanka’s T. Dinesh Kanthan and China’s J.N. Tao in the finals that will take place on Saturday.

In the first semifinals of the girls singles, Siya Qin, got the better of her compatriot Yan Wang to win the first set without much difficulty. The second set however was long drawn out, that went into a tie breaker, which was eventually won by Qin, which gave her the tie as well. In the other semifinal Tarrannum Handa was hard pressed by a determined, Divija Mandava, with both matching each other game for game but Handa clinched a closely fought first set. Handa came into her own in the second set to easily win the tie tie. Tarrannum Handa takes on Siya Qin in the singles finals on Saturday.

Results

Boys Singles

Semi-finals

T. Dinesh Kathan (SL) bt: Z. Cao (China) 6/1, 6/2

J.N. Tao (China) bt: S. Sivakumar (Ind) 6/0, 6/2.

Girls Singles

Semi-finals

T. Handa (Ind) bt: D. Mandava (Ind) 7/6, 6/2

S. Qin (China) bt: Yan Wang (China) 6/0, 7/5.

Girls quarter finals doubles

S. Hosh (MRI) and P. Kaur (Ind) bt: K. Herath (SL) and A. Razvi (Ind) 6/0,6/1

D. Mandava and S. Shivlinghiah (Ind) bt: D. Muralidharan (Ind) and N. Ruangsumare (Thai) 6/2, 6/0.

T. Kottuwattegedara (Sui) and A. Muttiah (SL) bt: S.M. Kumar and S.S. Hari (Ind) 3/6, 6/2, 10/0.

Rul Wang and Yan Wang (China) bt: Z. Ali Sajjad and T. Handa (Ind) 7/6, 6/7, 10/5.

Boys Semi finals doubles

A. Jayawickrema and T. Dinesh Kanthan (SL) bt: S.T. Paladugue and S. Sivakumar (Ind) 6/3, 6/3.

Z. Cao and J.N. Tao (China) bt: S. Gomez (SL) R. Maheswari (Ind) 6/4, 6/1.