Amritraj-Ram in semifinals, Singh ousted

Thu, May 15 01:15 AM

On a day when the weather gods were not kind leading to proceedings being delayed due to heavy rain and dust storms, the Indian challenge also ebbed. Ashutosh Singh, the only one remaining in the singles category, lost his pre-quarter final match, at the SAIL Open, part of the ATP Challenger Series, here on Wednesday.

The only saving grace was Prakash Amritraj, who along with Rajeev Ram (USA) advanced to the semi-finals of the doubles category. Ashutosh lost 4-6, 4-6 to Colin Ebelthite (Australia) in a match held up by rain.

Singh had already lost the first set before the heavens opened up. After a long wait, the match restarted but the Australian continued to dominate and broke Ashutosh's serve in the ninth game.

He went on to win the match on his serve. Amritraj and Ram though continued on their winning ways defeating Harsh Mankad (India) and Ashutosh (India) in straight sets 6-2, 7-6 (7-5) in the quarter-finals.

Amritraj and Ram, who eliminated the top-seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi in the opening round, got off to a solid start breaking Ashutosh's serve in the second game. They went on to win the set after Mankad failed to hold serve in the eighth game.

The second set turned out to be much tighter and went into the tie-break after Amritaj's serve was broken in the first game. But the Indian-American duo held their nerve in the tiebreak to win it 7-5.

Top-seed Yen-Hsun Lu (Chinese Taipei) marched into the quarterfinals beating unseeded Thomas Oger (France) 6-3, 7-5. In another upset, sixth-seed Qureshi lost 4-6, 6-7(7-5) to unseeded Mohammed Gharleeb (Kuwait) in the round of 16.

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