Manish and Keerthivassan to clash for men’s title
Manish Sureshkumar and Keerthivassan Suresh set up the men's singles final against each other while Vaishnavi Adkar and Akanksha Nitture will clash for the women's top prize after winning their respective semifinals of the Fenesta Open National Tennis Championship on Friday.
Tamil Nadu’s Manish recovered from a slow start to overcome fourth seed Ishaque Eqbal of West Bengal 1-6, 6-1, 6-1.
Eqbal dictated the early rallies, breaking serve twice to sweep the first set. Manish adjusted quickly, taking control of the baseline exchanges. Once he broke early in the second set, the momentum shifted entirely in his favour, and he closed out the match with two near-identical sets of 6-1. Meanwhile, Keerthivassan prevailed in a marathon against Madwin Kamath, winning 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-4 after four hours and 10 minutes.
The opening set went to a tie-break, where Keerthivassan’s consistency from the back of the court proved decisive.
Kamath responded strongly in the second, breaking serve early and holding firm to level the contest. The decider remained tight until Keerthivassan secured the crucial break at 4-4, after which he held serve to seal the victory.
In the women’s singles, top seed Vaishnavi from Maharashtra was in ruthless form as she dismissed fourth seed Soha Sadiq of Karnataka 6-1, 6-0.
She broke serve at the first opportunity and allowed her opponent only a single game in the entire contest. She dictated from the baseline, moved Soha around the court, and closed out the match in exactly one hour.
Second seed Akanksha recorded a come-from-behind 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win over Jennifer Luikham of Manipur.
Jennifer started brightly, capitalising on errors to take the opening set, but Akanksha steadied herself with stronger serving and deeper returns. She took control midway through the second set and never let up, running away with the decider 6-1.
In the U-18 category, seventh seed Snigdha Kanta of Karnataka defeated her home-state native Shreeniti Chowdhury 7-6, 6-0 in the girls’ singles semifinal, while fourth seed Tavish Pawa of Haryana got the better of fifth seed Gandharv Gourav of Karnataka 6-2, 6-2 in the boys’ singles semifinal.
